Steve McQueen, the visual artist and maker of three award-winning feature films, is to receive the British Film Institute’s highest accolade.
McQueen will become the youngest director to receive the BFI fellowship when it is presented to him at the awards ceremony of the London film festival on 15 October, six days after his 47th birthday.
The BFI fellowship, not to be confused with the Bafta fellowship – same idea, different organisations – was created in 1983 to mark the diamond jubilee of the BFI, Britain’s film agency.
McQueen will be the youngest man, and youngest director, to receive the accolade although not quite the youngest recipient: the actor Helena Bonham Carter was 46 and five months when she received her fellowship in October 2012.