Steven McQueen Biography

Steve McQueen is an English filmmaker and video artist known for his critically-acclaimed feature films Hunger (2008) and the Oscar-winning 12 Years a Slave (2013). Of Grenadian descent, Steve McQueen grew up in London and studied painting before switching to film. He studied art and design in London and New York, first getting critical notice for his 1993 short film Bear. During the 1990s, McQueen worked in art circles, making short, non-narrative films on a variety of serious subjects. The winner of England’s prestigious Turner Prize in 1999, McQueen didn’t make his first feature film until Hunger, in which Michael Fassbender plays IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands. It debuted at the Cannes Film Festival and McQueen won the Camera d’Or prize for best debut. His second feature was a sober look at sex addiction, 2001’s Shame, with Fassbender and Carey Mulligan. His third feature, 12 Years a Slave (starring Chiwetel Ejiofor), was released in 2013 and won the Oscar for best picture.