Director Steve McQueen Would Have Made Cannes History With Two Films in Competition

The BBC has confirmed that Steven McQueen conceived each episode of the anthology mini-series “Small Axe” as its own feature film. We already know that “Lovers Rock” and “Mangrove” were set to be part of the now-canceled 2020 Cannes Film Festival. The movies will debut in the U.S. on Amazon Prime as part of McQueen’s new deal with the streamer, no premiere date has been announced just yet.

Of the two selected films to premiere at Cannes, “Mangrove” clocks in at 2 hours and 4 minutes, and follows “the true story of Mangrove 9 activists and the trial that took place at the Old Bailey in 1970,” reports Variety. The film stars Letitia Wright. The second film, “Lovers Rock,” runs 1 hour and 8 minutes and “tells a fictional story of young love and music at a blues party in the early 1980s,” led by Amarah-Jae St Aubyn in her debut role and Micheal Ward.

Screen Daily is also reporting that both films would have made Cannes history as they were both set to premiere in competition, marking the first time in Cannes history a filmmaker would’ve had two films in competition vying for the Palme d’Or during the same year.

“I felt these stories needed to be shared,” McQueen said in press release. “I wanted to re-live, re-evaluate and investigate the journeys that my parents and the first generation of West Indians went on to deliver me here today calling myself a black British person. What’s important about our stories is that they are local but at the same time global. I think audiences will identify with the trials, tribulations and joy of our characters as well as reflecting on the present environment in which we find ourselves.”

You can now add the two McQueens to our ever-growing list of “What films would have competed for the Palme D’Or?” A fun game, which I will continue to spitball, since we will likely never know the full details of this year’s canceled competition. These are the films that would have surely vyed for the Palme D’Or:

The French Dispatch - Wes Anderson
Summer of 85 - François Ozon
Annette - Leos Carax
Memoria - Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Ahed’s Knee - Nadav Lapid
Benedetta - Paul Verhoeven
Bergman's Island - Mia Hansen-Love
Tres Piani - Nanni Moretti
Ammonite - Francis Lee
Mangrove - Steve McQueen
Lover’s Rock - Steve McQueen
On A Half Clear Morning - Bruno Dumont
Petrov’s Flu - Kirill Serebrennikov
True Mothers - Naomi Kawase
Another Round - Thomas Vinterberg
DNA - Maïwenn
Heaven: To The Land Of Happiness - Im Sang-soo