Bernard MacMahon

Bernard MacMahon is an Irish-British filmmaker. He developed an interest in early American cinema at a young age and was shooting and editing 8 mm short films by the age of 12. MacMahon said “America has fascinated me since I was a child. My big love is American cinema, especially early American cinema, and I’ve always been fascinated by that period in the 20s when the technology and artistic language of film was being invented.” Directed and co-written by MacMahon, the story was told through twelve ethnically and musically diverse musicians who auditioned for and participated in those pioneering recording sessions; The Carter Family, the Memphis Jug Band, Elder J.E. Burch, The Williamson Brothers, Dick Justice, Charley Patton, The Hopi Indian Chanters, Joseph Kekuku, Lydia Mendoza, the Breaux Family, Mississippi John Hurt, and Blind Willie Johnson.

The film series was created, written and produced by MacMahon, Allison McGourty and Duke Erikson. It was first broadcast on May 16, 2017, in the United States and was narrated by Robert Redford. The films contained many previously untold stories, a vast amount of previously unseen and extremely rare archival footage and dramatically advanced audio restorations of the 1920s and 1930s recordings. When MacMahon presented his vision for the films and the archival footage to Robert Redford at their first meeting, Redford pronounced it “America’s greatest untold story”. Many critics have cited the American Epic films as being one of the best music documentaries ever made.

During production of the American Epic documentary series, MacMahon directed and co-wrote The American Epic Sessions, a documentary film in which a sound engineer restored the fabled long-lost first electrical sound recording system from 1925 and twenty contemporary artists paid tribute to the momentous machine by attempting to record songs on it for the first time in 80 years. The film starred Steve Martin, Nas, Elton John, Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, Alabama Shakes, Jack White, Taj Mahal, Ana Gabriel, The Avett Brothers, Rhiannon Giddens, and Beck. It also explored the extent to which the recordings made on it in the 1920s influenced and inspired contemporary music. The film involved a decade of work restoring the machine, which was pieced together from spare parts scattered across the globe, in order to better understand the origins of modern recording technology, and the influence the machine had on world culture. The film received widespread acclaim for its direction, musical performances, sound and cinematography.

In September 2017 the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools announced a nine-month preschool to high school educational program based on MacMahon's American Epic films beginning on October 6, 2017. The school founded by American educator John Dewey in 1896 has over 2,015 students enrolled in 15 grades. The program featured MacMahon and producer and co-writer Allison McGourty as Artists-in-Residence. He is a member of the Directors Guild of America, the Television Academy, the Writers Guild of America West, the Sundance Institute and is the co-founder of Lo-Max Films. the Audience Award and Discovery Award for Best First Time Director at the 2016 Calgary International Film Festival, and was nominated for a Primetime Emmy. MacMahon was nominated by the British Academy Film Awards as a Breakthrough Talent for directing The American Epic Sessions. On April 23, 2018, the Focal International Awards nominated MacMahon for Best Use of Footage in a History Feature and Best Use of Footage in a Music Production. Award Category Recipients and nominees Result Calgary International Film Festival The Discovery Award Bernard MacMahon

Calgary International Film Festival Audience Award The American Epic Sessions

Tryon International Film Festival Best Documentary Bernard MacMahon

Tryon International Film Festival Best Overall Picture Bernard MacMahon

British Academy Film Awards Breakthrough Talent Bernard MacMahon (filmmaker)|Bernard MacMahon

Focal International Awards Best Use of Footage in a Music Production Bernard MacMahon The book was the winner of the 2017 Association for Recorded Sound Collections Award. and was the editor and compiler of a series of album releases that accompanied the American Epic films. These albums received widespread acclaim, with the 5-CD box set American Epic: The Collection being named as Rolling Stone’s Reissue of the Year and many critics acclaiming it as being the best box set of its kind ever to be released.