Steve McQueen is making a six-part BBC drama.
The Oscar winning director of Hollywood blockbuster ’12 Years a Slave’ will make his first television series about a West Indian community based in the heart of London across three decades.
Steve said: "This is about a legacy which has not only made my life as an artist possible, but also has shaped the Britain that we live in today."
BBC bosses announced that the series – to air on channel one – features characters whose "lives have been shaped by their own force of will despite an often hostile environment".
The story is set in the late ’60s in west London’s Ladbroke Grove and a restaurant called Mangrove will set the scene for a place of "camaraderie and friendship that becomes a social heart for the community – and, over time, a flashpoint for resistance".
The 45-year-old writer and director – who was born in London in 1969 – added that the project is close to his heart because it tells the story of his own "legacy".
He said: "These stories are passionate, personal and unique. They are testimony to the truth of real lives and urgently need to be told.
Steve’s other projects include Hollywood hits ‘Shame’ starring Michael Fassbender, about an executive struggling with sex addiction and ‘Hunger’, about the 1981 Irish hunger strike.
Oscar winning director Steve McQueen makes TV debut
