Age: 56
male
Sir Steve Rodney McQueen CBE (born 9 October 1969) is an English film director, film producer, screenwriter, and video artist. Known for directing films that deal with intense subject matter, he has received several awards, including an Academy Award, two BAFTA Awards, and a Golden Globe Award. He was honoured with the BFI Fellowship in 2016 and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2020 for services to art and film. In 2014, he was included in Time magazine's annual Time 100 list of the "most influential people in the world". McQueen began his formal training studying painting at London's Chelsea College of Art and Design. He later pursued film at Goldsmiths College and briefly at New York University. Influenced by Jean Vigo, Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, Ingmar Bergman, and Andy Warhol, McQueen started making short films. In 1999, McQueen was awarded the Turner Prize for the "range" and "emotional intensity" of his art. He made his feature-length directorial debut with the historical drama Hunger (2008), which focused on the 1981 Irish hunger strike, followed by the erotic, psychosexual drama Shame (2011), which explored sex addiction. He won the Academy Award for Best Picture, directing the historical drama 12 Years a Slave (2013). He also directed the contemporary crime thriller Widows (2018) and the World War II drama Blitz (2024). For television, he released Small Axe (2020), a collection of five anthology films "set within London's West Indian community from the late 1960s to the early '80s". He also directed the BBC documentary series Uprising (2021) and the documentary film Occupied City (2023). Description above from the Wikipedia article Steve McQueen (director), licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Born in Leeds, Richard Turner’s prodigious musical talent emerges early, leading him through the halls of Allerton Grange School and into the prestigious Leeds College of Music and Royal Academy of Music. Against the backdrop of Britain’s vibrant yet unforgiving jazz scene, Richard forms Round Trip, a contemporary jazz quartet that redefines boundaries, while also performing with indie-pop sensations Friendly Fires. As a perfectionist, Richard’s passion for jazz becomes both his driving force and an unrelenting challenge. Battling self-doubt, creative pressures, and the complexities of carving out a career in music, he pushes the limits of his craft, earning admiration from peers and audiences alike. In the summer of 2011, at just 27, Richard’s life is tragically cut short by a sudden aortic aneurysm while swimming, leaving behind a heartbroken family, collaborators, and a burgeoning legacy. But his story doesn’t end there. Through the establishment of the Richard Turner Jazz Fund, his influence continues to support the dreams of young jazz musicians, ensuring his music and ethos live on.
