RUÁN MAGAN – Director / Producer
Ruán Magan began his career in the film business working on features including FAR & AWAY, DEVIL'S OWN and MICHAEL COLLINS as AD, location manager and line producer. In the late 1990s he started making documentaries and has since made more than 100 documentary films throughout the world which have been broadcast on a host of channels including BBC, RTE, Smithsonian, The History Channel, Travel Channel, History Television, SBS, Canal+, Vision, TG4 and Arté.
Ruán has worked in China, the Middle East, India, the Arctic, throughout Africa, Australia, the Far East and North and South America making in depth explorative films about Islam, the fall of communism, the Christian missionary movement and the American Dream. In 2002 he made THE GLOBAL NOMAD - CHINA venturing deep into China to witness how this once isolated nation was reawakening. In 2006, he produced the acclaimed economics series, IN SEARCH OF THE POPE’S CHILDREN, for RTE and the BBC, winning an IFTA and a commendation from INPUT. In 2006 he co-directed ‘THE GHOSTS OF DUFFY’S CUT’ with Stephen Rooke, the gripping 1 x 52 minute HD documentary which had its world premiere screening at the ‘Stranger than Fiction Documentary Festival’ in Dublin, September 2006 and has since been nominated for a Best Single Documentary IFTA in 2007 and a Celtic Film and Television Award in 2006. Broadcast on RTÉ in 2006 it received phenomenal ratings of over half a million viewers. In 2008, he wrote and directed the major HD drama-documentary, DEATH OR CANADA for The History Channel, History Television and RTE, achieving 4 Gemini nominations, an IFTA nomination and two American Archaeology Channel awards. In 2010 he wrote and directed, ON GOD'S MISSION, a two part documentary project that told for the first time the incredible story of the 70,000 Irish missionaries who traveled across the planet during the 20th Century bringing education and social development to the developing world.
In 2011 he directed the first two episodes of the major History Television drama-documentary series, THE MEN WHO BUILT AMERICA, for New York-based Stephen David Entertainment as well as the pilot episode for their new series, REDRUM. He wrote and directed the short movie ANGEL which has already achieved two official selections to festivals in Ireland and Spain.
Ruán is currently in production with 3 documentary films, 3 HORSES, THE MISSION and IRELAND AND THE EURO and is writing two feature films including BOGMAN which is being developed in conjunction with the Sundance Film Lab. He is slated to direct the movie, THE ISLAND in 2013 a co-production between Ard Rí Films and rand Pictures.
Ruán's work has achieved multiple awards and nominations during the past 6 years.