Bobby Sands Movie

[stiffler]

McQueen to make film on Bobby Sands

Turner Prize-winning artist Steve McQueen has confirmed his first feature film - about Irish Republican Army (IRA) hunger striker Bobby Sands.   

 
Hunger focuses on the last six weeks in the life of Sands, leader of the 1981 IRA hunger strike at the Maze prison.

Filming begins in Northern Ireland in September.
McQueen, the film`s director and co-writer, is best known for a 1999 Turner Prize-winning video inspired by Buster Keaton.

The video artist said the story had modern relevance.

He said: "Hunger will be a film with international contemporary resonance. The body as site of political warfare is becoming a more familiar phenomenon.

"It is the final act of desperation, your own body is your last resource for protest. One uses what one has, rightly or wrongly.

"What I want to convey is something you can`t find in books or archive, the ordinariness and extraordinariness of life in this prison. Yet also the film is an abstraction in a certain way, a meditation on what it is like to die for a cause."

The film is being co-financed by Channel 4 for broadcast on TV next year, while worldwide sales rights are being sold in Cannes.

Jan Younghusband, Channel 4 Commissioning Editor for Arts, said: "Channel 4 regularly commissions new work from artists for the screen, galleries, public spaces and theatre.

"Steve McQueen is an exceptional artist and filmmaker whose work in galleries has transformed our experience of the visual arts.

"I am delighted to commission his first feature film which revisits, through the unique perspective of an artist, this crucial moment in Anglo-Irish history."

Source: u.tv

[his holiness nb]

Sounds interesting, I just hope the have it factually correct, as many people seem to take the film versions of life stories as fact.

[GweylTah]

It'll be about his last six weeks apparently.

So, presumably nothing about what got him to be inside in the first place (or the victims), but hopefully something about how his bravery was also foolhardy and exploited by the republican movement's leadership.

[AZOffaly]

If it's Hollywood, he'll probably tunnel out and become Leader of Sinn Féin and Taoiseach of a United Ireland.

[full back]

If it's Hollywood, he'll probably tunnel out and become Leader of Sinn Féin and Taoiseach of a United Ireland.

Getting him mixed up with Gerry there AZ

[Hardy]

After the last few weeks, I wouldn't be surprised if that actually did happen. Though more likely he'd become leader of the DUP and Queen of England.

[lynchbhoy]

It'll be about his last six weeks apparently.

So, presumably nothing about what got him to be inside in the first place (or the victims), but hopefully something about how his bravery was also foolhardy and exploited by the republican movement's leadership.

....or what caused him to have to resort to that either

[his holiness nb]

It'll be about his last six weeks apparently.

So, presumably nothing about what got him to be inside in the first place (or the victims), but hopefully something about how his bravery was also foolhardy and exploited by the republican movement's leadership.

Yeah presumably it will be made exactly to your personal interpretation of events.
I'm sure they couldnt find anyone more qualified to tell the story                                                    

[SammyG]

It'll be about his last six weeks apparently.

So, presumably nothing about what got him to be inside in the first place (or the victims), but hopefully something about how his bravery was also foolhardy and exploited by the republican movement's leadership.

Yeah presumably it will be made exactly to your personal interpretation of events.
I'm sure they couldnt find anyone more qualified to tell the story                                                    

It says in the article that it's only about the last 6 weeks.

[his holiness nb]

Yeah we know, its in the comment from Gweltyah you quoted.

[Star Spangler]

So, presumably nothing about what got him to be inside in the first place (or the victims)

Possession of firearms.  Hardly heavyweight terrorist activity!

[SammyG]

So, presumably nothing about what got him to be inside in the first place (or the victims)

Possession of firearms.  Hardly heavyweight terrorist activity!

Aye and Al Capone was only lifted for tax evasion. 

[Star Spangler]

I wonder if the movie will mention the fact that after his death, the Iranian government renamed the street on which the British Embassy is located as "Bobby Sands" Street.  Strangely enough, if you look up the Embassy they don't use the real street name on any official documents or references! 

[his holiness nb]

Aye and Al Capone was only lifted for tax evasion. 

Sammy thats pathetic, he was there for possession of firearms.
If you have some evidence to the contrary provide it, otherwise stop slandering the dead.

[SammyG]

Aye and Al Capone was only lifted for tax evasion. 

Sammy thats pathetic, he was there for possession of firearms.
If you have some evidence to the contrary provide it, otherwise stop slandering the dead.

Firstly you can't slander the dead, secondly he was the officer commanding the Belfast Brigade of the Provisional IRA at a time when they were destroying Belfast and murdering people on a daily basis, so I'm not sure how I've slandered him (even if he was alive).