A film documenting the final weeks of the IRA gunman Bobby Sands has been defended by its makers at the Cannes Film Festival as a useful insight into the mindset of modern suicide bombers
Hunger, a 96-minute film by the artist Steve McQueen, in competition at Cannes and part-funded by Film4, tells the story of Sands who died on hunger strike at the Maze prison; some critics say it is creating a hero out of a terrorist.
But Jan Younghusband, the executive producer of the film and commissioning editor of arts at Channel 4, said the harrowing story merely exposed the mentality of someone ready to die for a cause, such as the London suicide bombers. "You look at suicide bombers and wonder what it is that drives them to kill themselves in their attempt to make the world better," she said.
"This is a very contemporary issue, destroying your body for something you believe in. We look at terrorists and we think, 'Aren't they horrible; they are blowing us up'. But we have to ask what is our role in that? We are not without responsibility."
Using only sparse dialogue and including violent scenes of IRA prisoners being beaten, the film's writer, Enda Walsh, spent weeks interviewing Sands' fellow prisoners and guards. The makers say the story draws a parallel between IRA prisoners in the Maze and those in Iraq's Abu Ghraib and the US-run detention camp, Guantanamo Bay.
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But Jan Younghusband, the executive producer of the film and commissioning editor of arts at Channel 4, said the harrowing story merely exposed the mentality of someone ready to die for a cause, such as the London suicide bombers. "You look at suicide bombers and wonder what it is that drives them to kill themselves in their attempt to make the world better," she said.
"This is a very contemporary issue, destroying your body for something you believe in. We look at terrorists and we think, 'Aren't they horrible; they are blowing us up'. But we have to ask what is our role in that? We are not without responsibility."
Using only sparse dialogue and including violent scenes of IRA prisoners being beaten, the film's writer, Enda Walsh, spent weeks interviewing Sands' fellow prisoners and guards. The makers say the story draws a parallel between IRA prisoners in the Maze and those in Iraq's Abu Ghraib and the US-run detention camp, Guantanamo Bay.