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Hunger + ScreenTalk with screenwriter Enda Walsh & Lola Boorman, hosted by Clive Nwonka

The Devil Finds Work: James Baldwin on Film

,Cinema 2
An emaciated man sits in a jail cafe smoking a cigarette.

Steve McQueen's Hunger explores the themes of freedoms (both personal and national) and bodily suffering, which Baldwin investigates as a means of approaching cinema more broadly. 

Steve McQueen’s debut feature film, Hunger, remains an underappreciated examination of the 1981 Hunger Strike by the IRA prisoner Bobby Sands and his experiences of political oppression within the HYM Maze Prison. 

More broadly, the film is laden with universal questions of identity, belonging and morality. This screening, inspired by Baldwin’s analysis of the 1958 prison drama The Defiant Ones, asks what is experienced by the audience when confronted with images of human suffering, the political body, and what is seen in McQueen’s cinematic language that relates to Baldwin’s own concern with the relationship between cinema, identity and politics.

Tagged with: Cinema The Devil Finds Work

2008 UK/Ireland dir. Steve McQueen 96 min

This project is part of the ‘James Baldwin and Britain’ project (2024-2027), led by Douglas Field, Kennetta Hammond Perry and Rob Waters, with thanks for the generous support by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. 

The film programme is curated by Dr Clive Chijioke Nwonka.

Biographies

Enda Walsh is a playwright and screenwriter who shot to fame when he won both the George Devine Award and the Stewart Parker Award in 1997 with his play Disco Pigs.

In 2007 and 2008 Enda won Fringe First Awards at two consecutive Edinburgh Festivals for his plays The Walworth Farce and The New Electric Ballroom. The former led the Guardian to name him "one of the most dazzling wordsmiths of contemporary theatre."

Since his initial success as a playwright, Enda has gone on to write for the screen. His 2008 biopic, Hunger, won a host of awards, including the Camera d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.

Dr Lola Boorman is a Lecturer in American Literature and Culture at the University of York. Her work has appeared in Twentieth-Century Literature, ASAP/J, and Post45.

Cinema 2

Location
Barbican Cinema 1 is located within the main Barbican building on Level -2. Head to Level G and walk towards the Lakeside Terrace where you’ll find stairs and lifts to take you down to the venue floor.   

Address
Barbican Centre
Silk Street, London
EC2Y 8DS

Public transport
The Barbican is widely accessible by bus, tube, train and by foot or bicycle. Plan your journey and find more route information in ‘Your Visit’ or book your car parking space in advance.