’12 Years a Slave’ Director and Actress to Be Honored at Hollywood Film Awards

By Scott Feinberg, the Hollywood Reporter

Steve McQueen and Lupita Nyong’o to be recognized on Oct. 21 at the Beverly Hilton

12 Years a Slave director Steve McQueen and supporting actress Lupita Nyong’o will receive the Hollywood Breakout Director Award and New Hollywood Award, respectively, at the 17th annual Hollywood Film Awards, The Hollywood Reporter has learned exclusively.

The event, held on Oct. 21 at the Beverly Hilton, is the first awards show of the 2013 season. Previous recipients of the Hollywood Breakout Director Award include Ben Affleck, Paul Haggis, John Patrick Shanley, Lee Daniels, Michel Hazanavicius and Dustin Hoffman. And previous recipients of the New Hollywood Award include Robert Pattinson, Gabourey Sidibe, Jennifer Lawrence, Felicity Jones and Quvenzhane Wallis.

McQueen, 43, is a British filmmaker who has heretofore earned considerable critical acclaim for his first two feature films, Hunger (2008), a drama about an IRA hunger striker which won the Camera d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, and Shame (2011), a drama about a sex addict which won several prizes at the Venice Film Festival.

[…]

Nyong’o, 30, is a Mexican-born, Kenyan-raised and Yale School of Drama-educated actress. [S]he won the role of Patsey — a slave who receives particularly unkind attention from her master and his wife — in 12 Years a Slave shortly after her 2012 graduation from Yale.

12 Years a Slave is a drama based on the remarkable true story of a free black man from the north who was deceived and sold into slavery in the south in mid-19th century America. In addition to Nyong’o and Fassbender, its cast includes Chiwetel Ejiofor, Sarah Paulson, Benedict Cumberbatch, Michael Kenneth Williams, Paul Dano, Paul Giamatti, Alfre Woodard, Garret Dillahunt, Adepero Oduye and Beasts of the Southern Wildstars Quvenzhane Wallis and Dwight Henry and Brad Pitt.

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