Mary McGuckian

Mary McGuckian (born 27 May 1963) is a film director, producer, actress, and screenwriter from Northern Ireland. Her work includes The Midnight Court, Words Upon the Window Pane, This Is the Sea (1996), Best (1999), The Bridge of San Luis Rey (2001), Rag Tale (2004), Intervention (2007), Inconceivable (2008), Man on the Train (2010), The Price of Desire (2015), and A Girl from Mogadishu (2018).

Early life Mary McGuckian is the sister of Rosheen, and born to Alastair McGuckian, co-founder of the agribusiness giant Masstock Ventures in 1970, and Almarai in 1977, and raised on the 700-acre family farm,

McGuckian completed her drama education at Trinity College, Dublin (TCD).

In 2001, she established Pembridge Pictures in the UK to develop and finance her adaptation of Thornton Wilder's The Bridge of San Luis Rey, a film which starred F. Murray Abraham, Robert de Niro, Gabriel Byrne and Harvey Keitel. The work is considered a catastrophic box-office failure grossing less than $50,000 based on a budget of $54,000,000.

This lead her to work on more modern filmmaking styles and she developed a process combining modern script narrative forms and extended character development work with collaborating actors who then improvise their own dialogue directly on set,

later films have focussed on female equality stories and include: The Price of Desire (2015), which is the story of the inception of 20th-century architecture told in the context of how Le Corbusier completely erased the legacy of Irish Architect and Designer Eileen Gray. which starred Aja Naomi King, Barkhad Abdi and Maryam Mursals in the story of Irish Somali activist, Ifrah Ahmed's journey from war-torn Somalia to global activist. It premiered at the 2019 Dublin International Film Festival and Edinburgh International Film Festival, and it won the Audience Award at the 42nd edition of the Mill Valley Film Festival. Other awards included the Audience and Jury awards at the Semaine de Cinema Britannique in France and the Cinema For Peace Foundation award for its contribution to Women's Empowerment during the 2020 Berlin Film Festival.

Personal life Before they separated in 2008, she was married to actor John Lynch.

Filmography Director 2022 - The Bridge of San Luis Rey Remastered 2018 - A Girl from Mogadishu 2014 - The Price of Desire 2011 - The Novelist 2011 - Man on the Train 2010 - The Making of Plus One 2008 - Inconceivable 2007 - Intervention 2005 - Rag Tale 2004 - The Bridge of San Luis Rey 2000 - Best 1997 - This Is the Sea 1994 - Words Upon the Window Pane

Screenwriter 2018 - A Girl from Mogadishu 2014 - The Price of Desire 2011 - The Novelist 2011 - Man on the Train 2010 - The Making of Plus One 2008 - Inconceivable 2007 - Intervention 2005 - Rag Tale 2004 - The Bridge of San Luis Rey 2000 - Best 1997 - This Is the Sea 1994 - Words Upon the Windowpane

Producer 2022 - The Bridge of San Luis Rey Remastered 2018 - A Girl from Mogadishu 2014 - The Price of Desire 2011 - The Novelist 2011 - Man on the Train 2010 - The Making of Plus One 2008 - Inconceivable 2007 - Intervention 2005 - Ragtale 2004 - The Bridge of San Luis Rey 2000 - Best 1997 - This Is the Sea 1994 - Words Upon the Windowpane