Academy Award-winning British filmmaker Steve McQueen, to be awarded with this year’s Special Award of Outstanding Director at the 32nd EnergaCAMERIMAGE.
“Steve McQueen is an artist known for his uncompromising engagement in tackling difficult social and political issues. His vivid filmmaking style explores the problems of racism, violence, addiction and inequality, constantly moving and provoking discussion, which situates him as one of the most important contemporary film creators. We couldn’t imagine a better laureate for the Special Award for Outstanding Director than Steve McQueen,” said Marek Żydowicz – Festival Director at EnergaCAMERIMAGE.
McQueen will receive his Golden Frog in November, during the 32nd edition of EnergaCAMERIMAGE in Torun, Kujawy Pomorze Region.
McQueen’s 2008 feature film debut, the critically acclaimed Hunger, starring Michael Fassbender as a starving IRA hunger-striker premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and won the Camera D’Or. McQueen teamed up with Fassbender on his second feature, Shame in 2011. Fassbender received a Volpi Cup and the director of photography, while Sean Bobbit was honoured with the Carlo Di Palma Award for Cinematographer of the Year during the European Film Academy Awards gala. The film was also selected for the Main Competition at CAMERIMAGE Festival in 2011.
In 2013, McQueen directed Academy Award and BAFTA-winning 12 Years a Slave, based on the true story of Solomon Northup, a free black man kidnapped and sold into slavery. The film dominated the awards season, garnering numerous prestigious awards both for Best Film and for McQueen’s directing achievements. The film won the Academy Award, Golden Globe, BAFTA and AAFCA Awards for Best Picture while McQueen received DGA, Academy, BAFTA and Golden Globe directing nods. Sean Bobbit, who once again collaborated with McQueen on the set of 12 Years a Slave, saw the film compete once more for The Golden Frog at the Main Competition of the 21st edition of CAMERIMAGE.
McQueen went on to co-write and direct Widows (2018) starring Viola Davis, Cynthia Erivo, Elizabeth Debicki and Michelle Rodriguez. In 2020, McQueen’s anthology series Small Axe, comprising five original films about resilience and triumph in London’s West Indian community from the late 1960s through the early 80s, was awarded Best Picture by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, while McQueen received the Storyteller Award for series at the 16th Annual Final Draft Awards. Small Axe was also the recipient of fifteen BAFTA Television nominations. Three of the five films in the series played at the 58th New York Film Festival with Lovers Rock opening the fest, with two of the five selected for the 2020 Cannes Film Festival.
McQueen has teamed with cinematographer Yorick Le Saux on his latest film, Blitz, which follows the epic journey of George (Elliott Heffernan), a 9-year-old boy whose mother Rita (Saoirse Ronan) sends him to safety in the English countryside during World War II. George, defiant and determined to return home to Rita and his grandfather (Paul Weller) in East London, embarks on an adventure, only to find himself in immense peril, while a distraught Rita searches for her missing son. Written and directed by McQueen, the film stars Academy and BAFTA Award-nominee Saoirse Ronan and newcomer Elliott Heffernan, with Harris Dickinson, Benjamin Clementine, Kathy Burke, Paul Weller, Stephen Graham, Leigh Gill, Mica Ricketts, CJ Beckford, Alex Jennings, Joshua McGuire, Hayley Squires, Erin Kellyman, and Sally Messham rounding out the cast.
An Apple Original Film, Blitz will premiere in select theatres on November 1, 2024 prior to streaming globally on Apple TV+ on November 22, 2024.
McQueen is an accomplished documentarian. His feature documentary, Occupied City (2023), screened at numerous film festivals across the world, premiering at the Cannes Film Festival. His previous work in the field includes the BAFTA-awarded three-part series Uprising (2021), which McQueen both co-directed and produced. He also served as a co-producer on Three Minutes: A Lengthening (2021, dir. Bianca Stigter).
McQueen is a Turner Prize and Johannes Vermeer Prize laureate and in 2009 he represented the UK in the Venice Biennale. His work can be seen in galleries and leading museums across the world, including the Art Institute of Chicago, Schaulager in Basel, as well as Tate Modern and Tate Britain in London.
