Hunger, which opens in Victoria this weekend, won the Camera d’Or, the prize for best first feature, at the Cannes Film Festival last May. But director Steve McQueen, 39, is hardly a newcomer to filmmaking, even though his films and videos have until now been shown in galleries and not theaters. A star of the art world, he won the prestigious Turner Prize in 1999 and is representing Britain at this year’s Venice Biennale. Hunger is set almost entirely within the notorious Maze Prison near Belfast, McQueen wanted to make a film about “an extraordinary world that has become ordinary,” he said. The film follows the last six weeks in the
life of Republican Bobby Sands, who died during the strike. It unfolds in three distinct movements, each with its own style. The first section evokes the dark atmosphere in the maximum-security H-blocks and the Irish Republican Army’s demand to be recognized as political prisoners. The second act, captures an intimate conversation about the morality of suicide between Sands (Michael Fassbender) and a priest (Liam Cunningham). In the final third Bobby Sands begins his hunger strike.
Hunger debuted in at the Victoria Film Festival and was one of the most attended films at the Festival. Other Awards for Hunger British Actor of the Year, Michael Fassbinder, who plays Bobby Sands. 2008 European Discovery Award
Best Film, Irish Film Awards British Independent Film Award, Best Debut Director
