Cannes 2023: Steve McQueen’s upcoming documentary, ‘Occupied City’, will premiere
British director Steve McQueen has made his first foray into documentary feature-making with Occupied City, which will premiere at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival.
The documentary film, his first feature since 2018’s heist thriller Widows, is based on his wife Bianca Stigter’s illustrated history book, Atlas of an Occupied City, Amsterdam 1940-1945. McQueen will explore the period when Amsterdam was under Nazi occupation.
Discussing McQueen’s film, the Netherlands Film Fund (via Deadline) said, “Living in Amsterdam is like living with spirits. It looks like there are two parallel worlds. The past is always present.”
A24 will domestically distribute Occupied City, and New Regency will tackle international distribution, both of whom have helped to finance the project. Additionally, Film4 co-financed the documentary and will handle UK broadcasting rights.
McQueen was nominated for ‘Best Director’ at the Academy Awards in 2014 for 12 Years A Slave, which won ‘Best Picture’. Although the filmmaker has never directed a documentary feature before, he has previously helmed a documentary mini-series, Uprising, which examined events such as the 1981 Brixton Riot and Black People’s Day of Action.
Uprising won a BAFTA for ‘Best Factual Series’. Finding success as a feature filmmaker and documentarian, Occupied City is certain to be another impressive addition to McQueen’s filmography.
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