Ahead of its debut, Amazon has released the trailer for Lovers Rock, the second film in Steve McQueen’s Small Axe series. This comes as the first film, Mangrove, debuts this week.

The description. Lovers Rock tells a fictional story of young love at a Blues party in 1980. The film is an ode to the romantic reggae genre called “Lovers Rock” and to the Black youth who found freedom and love in its sound in London house parties, when they were unwelcome in white nightclubs.

The film stars Amarah-Jae St. Aubyn in her on-screen debut, alongside Top Boy‘s Michael Ward. Shaniqua Okwok, Kedar Williams-Stirling, Ellis George, Alexander James-Blake, Kadeem Ramsay, Francis Lovehall and Daniel Francis-Swaby also star. Directed by McQueen, Lovers Rock was co-written by McQueen and Courttia Newland.

Small Axe is an anthology series comprised of five original films set from the late 1960s to the mid-1980s that tell personal stories from London’s West Indian community, whose lives have been shaped by their own force of will despite rampant racism and discrimination. The title is derived from the African proverb, “If you are the big tree, we are the small axe.”

Watch the Lovers Rock trailer below:

The first Small Axe film, Mangrove, hits Amazon Nov. 20, with Lovers Rock following on Nov. 27.

Photo: Amazon

Lovers' Rock