Steven McQueen pic – Paul Greenwood

Goldsmiths University alumnus, director Steve McQueen, has been nominated for eight Oscars following the release of his recent film, Twelve Years a Slave.

The 1993 Fine Art BA Fine Art graduate and his team are hoping for victory in the following categories: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor Chiwetel Ejiofor, Best Supporting Actor Michael Fassbender, Best Supporting Actress Lupita Nyong’o, Best Adapted Screenplay, Film Editing and Production Design.

Twelve Years a Slave is the latest in a the recent trend genre of slavery and civil rights-related cinema coming to box offices. The trend has sparked enormous debate in the US about the horrors of slavery as well as historical inaccuracies in films preceding Twelve Years a Slave.

Critics have suggested that the subject has been ignored at a national level in the United States.

A Best Director Oscar for Steve McQueen would make him the first black director to win the accolade in the history of the Academy Awards.

The film won the Golden Globe for best picture during last Sunday’s ceremony in Los Angeles, while McQueen lost out on the award for direction to Gravity’s Alfonso Cuaron.

The film is pitted against another British film for this year’s best picture Oscar. Philomena, directed by Stephen Frears, stars Judi Dench in the role of Philomena Lee, who convinces former BBC journalist Martin Sixmith, played by Steve Coogan, to find the son she had lost to adoption.

The film was adapted for the screen by Coogan himself from the 2009 book by Sixmith, and has also been touted for Oscar glory in the categories of best picture, best actress, best adapted screenplay and original score.