'Hunger'

[Donagh]

(Risking like sounding like a certain Mr. T. Fearon...but here goes)

Having been invited to attend this year's Cannes Festival, which I duely accepted, I'll give you a full report on my return.  Believe it or not, organisers of a private party for 1000 people, to be held at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Cannes, have chosen an Irish ballad group to provide the evening's entertainment.....the Hollywood socialites will never have seen the likes of it.

For this movie Balladmaker? Well done! Must get that other boys email of you to send him a wee thanks. That book he gave us got £200 at the Ceili.

[Square Ball]

a wee snippet here on the BBC

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7406064.stm

[Main Street]

2 years ago the wind that shakes the barley took the Palme dór now Hunger is being tipped for top prize.

The director says, wagging his finger, don't come to see this film with set opinions.

That won´t stop the usual bigots coming to the thread to make negative comment about the film even though they haven't seen it.

[ziggysego]

Hunger has won the Camera d'Or prize, given to first time film directors, at the Cannes Film Festival. The prize was presented to Steve McQueen by Dennis Hopper. Congratulations.

[carnaross]

Reaction to this movie's general release will be interesting to see. Anybody know the release date?

[Square Ball]

Reaction to this movie's general release will be interesting to see. Anybody know the release date?

doesnt seem to be one yet

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0986233/releaseinfo

[Donagh]

AFAIK they are still trying to find a distributor.

[Square Ball]

AFAIK they are still trying to find a distributor.

Any idea why Donagh?

Is it the political nature of the film, financial, or other reasons

[Donagh]

I don't think there's anything funny going on. The final edit of the film wasn't made until fairly recently and this combined with a first time Director meant that no one was going to take a chance on picking it up before now. The movie has a distributor for Ireland and Britain but the makers had already targeted Cannes as the place to get an international distributor. The prize should strengthen their hand significantly now.

[Puckoon]

Looks superb and the award of the prize must mean the looks have substance. Hope it gets picked up and distributed soon.

[Main Street]

Good news about the film, I'll look forward to seeing it.

The IT had a bit of info
'Hunger was not eligible for the Palme d'Or award because it was screened outside of the main festival competition. It was the opening presentation of the official Cannes sidebar section, Un Certain Regard, and it received a five-minute standing ovation'.

'Hunger became the subject of many bidding battles at Cannes. Before the festival closed last night, the rights had been sold to distributors in the US, UK, Ireland, France, Belgium, Portugal, Greece, Australia and New Zealand. The film is likely to go on cinema release in the autumn'

[Orior]

Gail Walker is still as bitter as ever. She typifies unionist arogance insisting - the troubles never happened, blah blah blah, only unionists suffered, blah blah blah, the IRA are to blame for everything. Yeah Gail, thats right 

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/columnists/gail-walker/article3728524.ece

Why movies about the Troubles are all cartoons
Tuesday, May 20, 2008

You just have to see how Hunger, the new 'Troubles' movie which premiered in Cannes last week, is being summarised in the Press to realise how stupid and ineffective that whole industry is in capturing anything like the real world.

This is a direct quote from one such plot synopsis: "Sands had been jailed on firearms offences he was accused of committing as part of the IRA's deadly campaign to end British rule of Northern Ireland and unite the Protestant-dominated province with the largely Catholic Republic of Ireland."

As I predicted last week, what a sad mish-mash of half-accurate, half-deluded, half-insulting caricature that is.

The film-maker, Steve McQueen — if only — has this to say defending the graphic depiction of the hungerstrikes and the brutality of prison warders.

"Like in any situation ... you use the things that you've got at your disposal," explains the 38-year-old London-born artist.

"In that case, it was the body. Excrement, urine, whatever, you use what you have, they were limited to that."

Of course, there'll be the usual outcry from the media in Great Britain about the anti-British bias of the movie, even though McQueen is actually an official war artist and former winner of the Turner Prize, so is really a monster of their own making.

But what the point should be is that we can only expect the movie industry to invent its own sad, stereotypical tales and film them with moody actors and glamorous actresses.

When it comes to capturing 'real-life' drama, even the most gritty and graphic production amounts to nothing more than a cartoon.

It's only when we actually know the real details, have lived through the real incidents portrayed that we realise, with something of a shock, the fact it's all, er, fiction. For decades, smug buffs in Britain have been sneering at US war movies of the Second World War, even most recently about the abduction by the US Navy of the credit for breaking the Enigma code.

That attitude followed Hollywood into Korea, Vietnam and now even into Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Americans, we assume, believe those movies 'tell it like it is'. That's certainly what the publicists plaster over every TV advert and poster.

But a whole series of British and Irish movies — if there are such things, given it's always US money and distributors flogging the show — have been to the 'province' and delivered product which has told it 'like it is'. Except it's been 'like it isn't' or 'wasn't'.


I, for one, have had enough. Of course, the movies are biased. You aren't going to make a sexy drama about an undersecretary of state in the NIO during the dark days of the late 70s.

No one's going to do a biopic of former Ombudsman and serial inquiry chairman Maurice Hayes. No one, certainly, is going to do a 'life' of some anonymous cop who didn't live beyond switching on the ignition in his car.

The focus will always be on what movie-makers regard as the 'freedom fighters', complete with sobbing girlies and star-struck prot£g£s. It's what they've always done.

And the same people who loathed Patriot Games with Harrison Ford busting a splinter group of the IRA will no doubt adore Hunger by Steve McQueen. But not because it's the truth. Or because it's even close.

It'll be because it presents the image they want to have presented.

And there's another name for that entirely. And it isn't 'art'.

[ziggysego]

[Main Street]

Gail Walker is still as bitter as ever. She typifies unionist arogance insisting - the troubles never happened, blah blah blah, only unionists suffered, blah blah blah, the IRA are to blame for everything. Yeah Gail, thats right 

Gail hasn't seen the film yet.

[Square Ball]

well we will just have to wait and see and comment on it.