Steve McQueen says this his new film 12 Years A Slave is about 'hope' and 'love'.
McQueen will return to the director's chair in January for the highly anticipated 12 Years A Slave, which is based on the memoir of Solomon Northup.
The movie has already been whipping up a storm on the festival circuit and is being tipped as a major Oscar player.
Speaking to Entertainment Weekly the director said: "What I would say is that, for me, this film has always been about love. Through the worst kind of environment, my ancestors and people like me survived and they survived through love.
"They didn't have much choice. They had to navigate their way through a circumstance in order to bring their children up. Some people were taken away from their parents, some were taken away from their mothers and fathers.
"But in all that chaos, there was a sense of hope and love and that's what Solomon went through for 12 years in his journey. He held on to his sense of love and that sense of hope.
"That's why I'm sitting here talking to you now, because my family went through that and I'm sitting here so the film is about love, absolutely more than anything else."
This is the first film for McQueen since Shame, but it promises to be the biggest movie of his directing career.
He has brought together a cast that includes Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender, Benedict Cumberbatch and Brad Pitt.
It was revealed earlier this week at 12 Years A Slave led the Independent Spirit Award nomination, picking up seven nods.
12 Years A Slave is released 24th January.
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