Caribbean Heritage Organization
Social Consciousness in Film Honoree
Academy Award winner Steve McQueen is a British artist and filmmaker of Grenadian Heritage. His critically acclaimed first feature HUNGER (2008), starring Michael Fassbender as an IRA hunger-striker, won the Camera D’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 2008. He re-teamed with Fassbender for his follow up feature SHAME (2011) for which Fassbender won the Volpi Cup at the Venice Film Festival for Best Actor.
McQueen’s 12 YEARS A SLAVE (2013) dominated awards season, winning, amongst many others, the Academy Award, Golden Globe, BAFTA and AAFCA Awards for Best Picture while McQueen received DGA, Academy, BAFTA and Golden Globe directing nods.
His third feature WIDOWS (2018) was one of the best reviewed films of the year and starred Viola Davis, Cynthia Erivo, Elizabeth Debicki and Michelle Rodriguez.
His most recent project, SMALL AXE (2020) is an anthology series that comprises five original films about resilience and triumph in London’s West Indian community from the late 1960s through the early 80s. Three of the five films in the series played at the 58th New York Film Festival with Lovers Rock opening the fest. SMALL AXE won the award for Best Picture from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association and McQueen will receive the Storyteller Award (TV) for the series at this year’s 16th Annual Final Draft Awards.
McQueen is the recipient of many accolades for his work as a visual artist. In 2016, he received the Johannes Vermeer Award at the Hague. In that same year, the British Film Institute awarded him with a Fellowship. McQueen won the Turner Prize in 1999. His artwork is exhibited and held in major museums around the world.
A retrospective was recently exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago and at the Schaulager in Basel. Tate Modern and Tate Britain were home to two critically acclaimed shows in 2019/2020, Year 3 and a Retrospective Steve McQueen.
In 2020, McQueen was awarded a knighthood in the Queen’s New Year’s Honors List for his services to the Arts.
