Resistance in a Hostile Environment: Uprising

This five-part docuseries encompasses three documentaries – Uprising (episodes 1-3), Black Power: A British Story of Resistance (episode 4) and Subnormal (episode 5).

Uprising (episodes 1-3)

From Oscar-winning filmmaker Sir Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave, Small Axe) and BAFTA nominee James Rogan (Putin: A Russian Spy Story, Monty Python: The Meaning of Live), the BBC documentary series Uprising recently won the 2022 BAFTA Award for Best Factual Series.

The three-part miniseries tells the extraordinary story of three intertwined events from 1981: the New Cross Fire, which killed 13 young Black people; the Black People’s Day of Action; and the Brixton riots – turning points which would go on to define race relations in the UK for a generation.

Uprising has a 100% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes, where the critics consensus says, “Honest, harrowing, and heartbreaking, Uprising is an incredible feat of documentary storytelling from Steve McQueen.” Guardian calls it “brilliant and furious and human.”

Black Power: A British Story of Resistance (episode 4)

Narrated by Oscar winner Daniel Kaluuya (Judas and the Black Messiah), the documentary film Black Power: A British Story Of Resistance looks at the 60s and 70s through the eyes of the activists who were there, and examines the socio-cultural movement that helped fuel hope and resilience, mobilised in protest of the apartheid system in South Africa, and ultimately started Britain on the road to being a more inclusive and diverse society.

Executive produced by Oscar winner Sir Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave, Small Axe) and BAFTA nominee James Rogan (Putin: A Russian Spy Story, Monty Python: The Meaning of Live), the film was nominated for a 2022 BAFTA Award and holds a 100% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with Financial Times calling it, “A vital slice of British social history.”

Directed by BAFTA nominee George Amponsah (Enslaved), Black Power draws on interviews with former activists (including the likes of Linton Kwesi Johnson) as well as archive footage of civil rights leaders from Altheia Jones-LeCointe, Darcus Howe and Roy Sawh to Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr., tracing the rise of organisations such as the British Black Panthers, R.A.A.S. and The Fasimbas.

Also stream Small Axe, the drama miniseries by Steve McQueen, inspired by the stories told in these documentaries.