Hunger
Lending a savage intimacy to the spirit of Bobby Sands - the IRA radical who spearheaded the Irish prison-strikes of 1981 - "Hunger" is a no-holds-barred immersion in human suffering.
Directed by Steve McQueen, winner of the Camera d'Or at Cannes, the film confines itself to the Maze prison in County Down, where Sands (Michael Fassbender) is being held for the possession of firearms; upon greeting a newly-appointed cellmate, he bitterly reveals that he's been sentenced to 12 years imprisonment.
But any recourse to the comfort of time is cut short by the permanence of the two men's surroundings - a sterile, baby-yellow lockup.
Even the panacea of religion offers no comfort, as seen during a scene where Sands meets with a visiting priest (Liam Cunningham), who engages him in a theological debate over the merits of a proposed hunger-strike; curtly rejecting the priest's qualms, Sands confirms that McQueen's aim - beyond political and religious descant - is to restore to the abstract tide of history a physical sense of suffering.
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Starring: Michael Fassbender, Stuart Graham, Helena Bereen
Hunger is released 31st October