Hunger (2008)

Essential Viewing

UK/Ireland
Feature Film
Director: Steve McQueen
Writers: Steve McQueen, Enda Walsh
Cinematographer: Sean Bobbitt
Composers: Leo Abrahams, David Holmes
Cast: Michael Fassbender, Stuart Graham, Liam Cunningham

Turner Prize winning artist Steve McQueen’s feature debut – a harrowing, unflinching portrait of IRA member Bobby Sands’s time in the Maze prison in Northern Ireland, chronicling his many abuses at the hands of the guards, as well as his various protests, including his fatal hunger strike – is a blood-stained, shit-smeared masterpiece, which somehow manages to find poetry and sensual beauty in amongst a barrage of images of hate and violence. Iain.Stott

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The Father, the Son and the Housekeeper (2009)

Recommended

UK/Ireland
Short Television Documentary
Director: Alison Millar
Cinematographers: Seamas McCracken, Michael Quinn
Composers: Danny Todd, Jeremy Vass
Featuring: Father Michael Cleary, Ross Hamilton

Despite a couple of questionable soundtrack choices, Millar’s documentary - a delicate depiction of superstar priest, Father Michael Cleary (coming across like a lost character from Father Ted), and his illegitimate son, Ross Hamilton (a tragically beautiful figure), which also manages to be a damning portrait of the system that forced these two people to live such disparate lives - is a revealing and moving experience. Iain.Stott

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Five Minutes of Heaven (2009)

Highly Recommended

UK/Ireland/France
Television Film
Director: Oliver Hirschbiegel
Writer: Guy Hibbert
Cinematographer: Ruairi O'Brien
Cast: Liam Neeson, James Nesbitt, Mark Davison

A former member of the UVF (Neeson) agrees to meet with the brother (an excellent, anxiety ridden Nesbitt) of a man that he killed 33 years previously, on camera for a television show, in Hirschbiegel’s tense and moving film, which thankfully avoids any easy answers to The Troubles. Iain.Stott

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True North (2006)

Cautiously Recommended

UK/Ireland/Germany
Feature Film
Writer/Director: Steve Hudson
Cinematographer: Peter Robertson
Composer: Edmund Butt
Cast: Peter Mullan, Martin Compston, Gary Lewis, Steven Robertson, Angel Li

Hudson’s feature debut never really convinces in terms of realism - there is far too much that seems illogical, and the score, at times, is horribly intrusive - but as allegory, it is far more effective, painting a damning picture of the uncaring, exploitative, and all-consuming West. Iain.Stott

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And When Did You Last See Your Father (2007)

Recommended

UK/Ireland
Feature Film
Director: Anand Tucker
Writers: David Nicholls, Blake Morrison
Cinematographer: Howard Atherton
Composer: Barrington Pheloung
Cast: Jim Broadbent, Colin Firth, Juliet Stevenson, Gina McKee, Sarah Lancashire, Elaine Cassidy, Claire Skinner, Matthew Beard, Bradley Johnson

A well-acted, beautifully drawn, and humorously touching portrait of a world-weary son’s regret-tinged remembrance of the up-and-down relationship that he shared with his once gregarious father, as he helplessly watches his emaciating shell quietly waste away on his death-bed. Iain.Stott

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