liam cunningham – FILMdetail

Liam Cunningham is one of the actors in the new film Hunger, which deals with the 1981 IRA hunger strike and marks the feature film debut for director Steve McQueen.

Although he only appears in one scene, it is an extraordinary unbroken sequence in which plays a priest who questions Sands about the wisdom of his actions.

The film premiered to great acclaim at the Cannes Film Festival and recently screened at the London Film Festival, which was when I spoke to Liam.

You can listen to it here:

[audio:http://filmdetail.receptionmedia.com/Liam_Cunningham_on_Hunger.mp3]

Download it as a podcast via iTunes by clicking here.

Hunger opens at selected UK cinemas on Friday 31st October

> Download the interview as an MP3 file
> Official UK site for Hunger
> Liam Cunningham at the IMDb
> Read our recent LFF piece on Hunger and a longer review from last month
> Green Cine Daily with the reactions to Hunger at Cannes earlier this year
> Find out more about the 1981 Hunger Strike at Wikipedia

Today was one of those days when you realise you can’t be everywhere at once.

With so many films on, you have to choose between making a screening, doing an interview or just catching up with stuff.

So instead of going the press show of Michael Winterbottom‘s new film Genova, I spoke with actor Liam Cunningham about Hunger, the new drama about Bobby Sands and the IRA hunger stike of 1981.

Directed by Turner prize-winning artist Steve McQueen it is one of the highlights of this festival and the most arresting debut I’ve seen in a long time.

Liam plays Father Moran, the priest who tries to talk Sands (Michael Fassbender) out of his hunger strikeand although he only appears in one scene, it is an extraordinary 17 minute sequence all done in once take.

We spoke about how they filmed this and other aspects of the movie such as its recent premiere in Belfast.

Apparently it holds the world record for the longest single take for a single scene (although I’m not sure how this compares to Russian Ark in which the whole film was one take).

I’ll put the interview up next week when the film gets it’s UK release. Although a tough film to watch, it contains some of the most accomplished film-making you’re likely to see this year.

In the afternoon I headed over to the Delegate Centre at the BFI Southbank, which is where accredited journalists, filmmakers and industry folk go to catch up on things.

Aside from catching up on the latest issues of Variety and Screen International you can meet other people there and even watch a selected list of the films showing at the festival on DVD.

Just a reminder, if you are at the festival or are interested in any of the films or events going on, then drop me an email and I can write a post about it.

> Previous posts about Hunger
> Liam Cunningham at the IMDb
> Article in The Times about the 17 minute sequence in Hunger
> BFI Southbank