Steve McQueen To Debut Film ‘Grenfell,’ On Grenfell Fire

Steve McQueen

Steve McQueen, the Oscar-winning filmmaker and artist, is set to debut his latest project next month at the Serpentine Art Gallery in West London. The 24-minute film is titled Grenfell, and it revolves around the Grenfell Tower disaster, which claimed the lives of 72 people following a devastating fire in North Kensington, West London, back in 2017.

According to reports, McQueen’s Grenfell film features footage of the charred tower taken from a helicopter. However, there is no narrative or dramatization within the installation. Instead, the film is described as McQueen’s “response to the Grenfell Tower tragedy.” The filmmaker completed production on the project shortly before the tower was covered in a protective wrap to aid forensic investigations.

The film will be exhibited at the Serpentine Gallery in West London, just a short distance from the tower, from April 7 to May 10. The project was self-funded by McQueen and will not be sold commercially or screened on television.

In a recent interview with The Guardian, McQueen discussed the project and acknowledged that some viewers might be disturbed by it. “When you make art, anything half decent … there are certain people you will possibly offend. But that is how it is,” he said.

McQueen also criticized the UK government’s response to the tragedy, calling it a “deliberate act of neglect and, to a certain extent, greed.” He added that the ongoing criminal investigation and two-part inquiry launched by the government following the fire had not done enough to hold those responsible to account.

The Grenfell Tower disaster was the UK’s highest loss of life following a residential fire since the Second World War. Recommendations from the first part of the government inquiry, which concluded in 2020, included legal obligations to plan for the evacuation of high-rise buildings and disabled residents in the event of a serious fire. However, it was reported last year that the government had failed to implement a single recommendation from the inquiry.

Grenfell is just the first of several potential projects we can expect from McQueen in the near future. The filmmaker is currently shooting a WW2 drama titled Blitz, starring Harris Dickinson, Saoirse Ronan, and Stephen Graham, for Apple. He is also working on a long-gestating doc called Occupied City, based on the illustrated history book Atlas Of An Occupied City, Amsterdam 1940-1945, written by his wife, Bianca Stigter. The book uncovers traces of World War II in Amsterdam.