July 15, 2010 - FOUR WINGS AND A PRAYER (a.k.a THE INCREDIBLE JOURNEY OF THE BUTTERFLIES) nominated for an Emmy Award in the category of Outstanding Nature Programming.
April 23, 2010 - The WATERLIFE website wins the 2010 Webby Award in the category of Documentary, Single Episode. To view the WATERLIFE web site, please click here.
April 12, 2010 - A HARD NAME wins the Genie Award for Best Feature Length Documentary .
March 27, 2010 - John Minh Tran has won the Canadian Society of Cinematographer's Award in the category of Best Documentary Cinematography for WATERLIFE.
March 14, 2010 - The WATERLIFE website wins the 2010 SXSW Web Award in the category of Activism (Green and Non-profit websites that are striving to make the world a better place).
March 1, 2010 - A HARD NAME nominated for a Genie Award in the Best Feature Length Documentary category.
February 1st, 2010 - The WATERLIFE website wins the City of Karlsruhe Prize (for best educational, social or science multimedia product) at BakaFORUM 2010.
December 1st, 2009 - The WATERLIFE website wins Best Cross-Platform Project at the Canadian New Media Awards. This category recognizes excellence in interactive enhancement of a television property on digital platforms.
November 11th, 2009 - The WATERLIFE web site wins Best Of Show at the Digital Marketing Awards. The site also won a Gold in the Entertainment, Arts & Tourism category.
August 25th, 2009 - ANCESTORS IN THE ATTIC is nominated for a Gemini in the Best Documentary Series category.
July 15th, 2009 - WATERLIFE selected to screen at Michael Moore's film festival, the Traverse City Film Festival in Traverse City, Michigan.
May 8, 2009 - WATERLIFE wins the Special Jury Prize - Canadian Feature at Hot Docs.
May 8, 2009 - A HARD NAME - Top Ten Audience Favourite at Hot Docs, and a finalist for the Special Jury Prize - Canadian Feature.
December 18, 2008 - Primitive Entertainment garners two CFTPA Indie Award nominations from the Candadian Film and Television Producers Association.
August 26, 2008 - Primitive Entertainment garners seven Gemini nominations.
June 9, 2008 - FOUR WINGS AND A PRAYER wins the Rockie Award for Best Wildlife and Natural History Program and the Banff World Television Festival.
A Hard Name
Best Feature Length Documentary - Genie Awards, 2010
Top Ten Audience Favourite - Hot Docs, 2009
Finalist - Special Jury Prize, Canadian Feature- Hot Docs, 2009
Ancestors in the Attic
Nominated: Best Documentary Series - Gemini Awards, 2009
Nominated: Best Documentary Series - CFTPA Indie Awards, 2008
Nominated: Best Direction in a Lifestyle/Practical Information Program or Series - Gemini Awards, 2008
Nominated: Best Host or Interviewer in a General/Human Interest or Talk Program or Series - Gemini Awards, 2008
A Perfect Fake
The Silver Plaque - Chicago International Film Festival, 2005
Cod: The Fish That Changed The World
Best Writing in a Documentary Program or Series - Gemini Awards 2001
Bronze Plaque - Columbus International Film and Video Festival, 2001
Four Wings and a Prayer
Best Wildlife and Natural History Program - Banff World Television Festival, 2008
Special Jury Award, WorldFest Houston, 2008
Grand Prize - Pariscience Film Festival, 2007
Jules Verne Nature Award - Jules Verne Film Festival, 2007
Nominated: Best Science, Technology, Nature, Environment or Adventure Documentary Program - Gemini Awards, 2008
Nominated: Best Direction in a Documentary Program - Gemini Awards, 2008
Nominated: Best Photography in a Documentary Program or Series - Gemini Awards, 2008
I, Curmudgeon
The Silver Hugo - Chicago International Film Festival, 2005
Honorary Mention - Brooklyn Underground Film Festival, 2005
Intelligence
Nominated: Best Direction in a Documentary - Gemini Awards, 1998
Nominated: Best Feature Length Documentary - Hot Docs, 1998
Honourable Mention - Columbus International Film and Video Festival, 1998
In the Reign of Twilight
Nomination: Best Documentary Feature - Hot Docs, 1995
Finalist - New York Festivals, 1996
Bronze Plaque - Columbus International Film & Video Festival, 1996
Finalist - International Wildlife Film Festival, 1997
Merit Award for Comprehensive Portrayal of Native People versus Global Turmoil - International Wildlife Film Festival, 1997
Merit Award for the Creative use of Archival Material - International Wildlife Film Festival, 1997
Lovable
Nominated: Best Biography Documentary Program - Gemini Awards, 2008
McLuhan's Wake
2003 John Culkin Award for Outstanding Praxis in the Field of Media Ecology - The Media Ecology Association
The Chris Award - Columbus International Film and Video Festival, 2002
Stolen Spirits of Haida Gwaii
Gold Ribbon Award - Canadian Association of Broadcasters, Aboriginal Programming, 2006
Grand Prix Rigoberta Menchu - Montreal First People's Festival, 2005
Best Direction in a Documentary Program - Gemini Awards, 2005
Best History Documentary Program - Gemini Awards, 2005
The Face of Victory
Two Special Jury Awards - WorldFest Houston, 2006
The Falls
Nomination: Best Feature Length Documentary - Genie Awards, 1991
Finalist - Earth Peace International Film Festival, 1991
Finalist - Documentary Feature Films, Worldfest Houston, 1992
The Team
Honourable Mention - Columbus International Film and Video Festival, 2001
Things That Move
Gold Award, Opening Title Animation - WorldFest Houston, 2006
Waterlife
Special Jury Prize, Canadian Feature - Hot Docs, 2009
Best Cross Platform Project (Web Site), Canadian New Media Awards, 2009
Best Of Show (Web Site), Digital Marketing Awards, 2009
Gold (Web Site), Entertainment, Arts & Tourism, Digital Marketing Awards, 2009
Working Over Time
Nominated: Best Documentary Series - CFTPA Indie Award, 2008
Nominated: Best Host or Interviewer in a General/Human Interest or Talk Program or Series - Gemini Awards, 2008
A Hard Name
Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival, 2009
Rendezvous With Madness, 2009
A Perfect Fake
Bergen International Film Festival, 2005
Vancouver International Film Festival, 2005
Sydney Film Festival, 2005
Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival, 2005
I, Curmudgeon
Brooklyn Underground Film Festival, 2005
Brisbane International Film Festival, 2005
Jacksonville Film Festival, 2005
Newport Beach Film Festival, 2005
Cinequest Film Festival, Silicon Valley 2005
Available Light Film Festival, Whitehorse, 2005
San Francisco Independent Film Festival, 2005
Victoria Independent Film and Video Festival, 2005
Sarasota Film Festival, 2005
Get Real Documentary Film Festival, Minneapolis, 2004
Atlantic International Film Festival, Halifax, 2004
Calgary International Film Festival, 2004
Vancouver International Film Festival, 2004
Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival, 2004
Intelligence
Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival, 1998
Hot Docs - Focus On Retrospective, Kevin McMahon, 2007
In The Reign of Twilight
Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival, 1995
International Wildlife Film Festival, 1997
The Far North Film Festival, 1998
Hot Docs - Focus On Retrospective, Kevin McMahon, 2007
Lovable
Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival, 2007
McLuhan's Wake
Input, Aarhus Denmark, 2003
Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival, 2002
International Documentary Festival Amsterdam, 2002
The Museum of Television and Radio Documentary Festival, New York, 2002
Hot Docs - Focus On Retrospective, Kevin McMahon, 2007
The Falls
Toronto International Film Festival, 1991
Semana Interacional de cine de valladolid Espana, 1991
Earth Peace International Film Festival, 1991
Taejon World Exposition, Korea, 1993
Hot Docs - Focus On Retrospective, Kevin McMahon, 2007
Stolen Spirits of Haida Gwaii
Munich International Documentary Film Festival , 2005
American Indian Film Fesitval, San Francisco, 2005
Waterlife
Traverse City Film Festival, 2009
Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival, 2009
Syracuse Documentary Film Festival, 2009
DOXA Documentary Film Festival, 2009
Posible Worlds - Canadian Film Festival, Sydney, Australia, 2009
Environmental Film Fesitval, Washington D.C., 2010
Sarnia Justice Film Festival, 2010
Be The Change Film Festival, 2010
Lago Film Festival, Italy, 2010
National Museum of the American Indian, Washington D.C, 2010
Aquafest, Grand Bend, Ontario, 2010
“It is ironic to offer too much praise for any one person as a creator these days. We are told to believe in the text, not the teller. But just as Donald Brittain embodied the possibility that one could be hip and care in his documentaries of the 1960s and 1970s, so McMahon does now... Kevin McMahon’s films are coherent, poetic and ironic. They deal with important topics and never shirk the difficulties inherent in complex issues. Successfully marrying the oral and visual traditions of the non-fiction film form, McMahon has produced thought-provoking, stylish pieces.
Marc Glassman, Take One
“My years as the festival’s chief trapper of the indigenous cinematic product corresponded with the emergence of some of the most distinctive and promising moving imagemakers the country had seen in sometime: Atom Egoyan, John Greyson, Patricia Rozema, Denys Arcand, Kevin McMahon...”
Geoff Pevere, The Toronto Star
Reflections on the Toronto International Film Festival’s 25th Anniversary
“Michael McMahon, with his brother Kevin, has produced some of the best films of the past decade.”
Antonia Zerbisias, The Toronto Star
“For Margaret Atwood, Canadian literature serves as a corrective, a mirror for readers to help them to see where in fact they are. In McMahon’s films, the screen becomes, in effect, such a mirror -- albeit a postmodern “crazy mirror” to paraphrase Raymond Durgnat -- showing Canadians themselves. McMahon’s work thus provides us with one of the maps we need, what Atwood would call ‘a geography of the mind’.”
Barry Keith Grant, Post Script: Essays in Film
"MCLUHAN’S WAKE extends and elaborates the project by recruiting the techniques of film to the defence of the civilization founded on the keel of print. The director, Kevin McMahon, deploys the tradecraft of a sophisticated electronic sensibility - stock footage rendered as poetic image, symbolic mosaics displayed in the manner of Cubist painting, a polyphonic counterpoint of voice-overs (among them McLuhan’s son and grandson) - to quarrel with its own nature and question its own existence. The result is as artful a
documentary as I can remember ever having seen."
Lewis Lapham, editor of Harper’s Magazine.
“Visually stunning and brilliantly conceived. Simply put, IN THE REIGN OF TWILIGHT is the most informed and thoughtful film about the history and development of the Canadian Arctic that I have ever seen. But it is also one of the most technically imaginative and artistically accomplished documentaries to be shown on television. On every conceivable level... this film achieves the sort of collaborative perfection that is perhaps always sought, but too rarely achieved by filmmakers... It is impossible not to be deeply
moved and impressed... (The) splendid marriage of state-of-the-art post-production techniques with great research and intellectual clarity of purpose... makes IN THE REIGN OF TWILIGHT an utterly exceptional and valuable piece of work.”
John Haslett Cuff, The Globe and Mail
“A Rorschach pattern for post-modernists... Non-white cultures have often complained that whites have stolen their voices. McMahon does something else -- he creates a new bi-cultural tongue, drawn from the language of cinema... (The) pictures present an overpowering sense of the place and the conditions in which both man and beast must co-exist... a poetic arc of image and sound... as breathtaking as it is sad.”
Craig MacInnis, The Toronto Star
“Visually beautiful... this film has it all. Composed predominantly of languid tracking shots of the sort directors Peter Greenaway and Jean-Pierre Lefebvre have spent their careers perfecting, THE FALLS communicates the grandeur of the tumbling tonnes of water by bathing the eyeballs in soaking, wide-screen splendour... The film intermarries the naturally sacred and the unnaturally profane with breathtaking dexterity...THE FALLS has brilliantly framed Niagara Falls as the picture of a civilization.”
Jay Scott, The Globe and Mail
“Stunning, unsettling, provocative and sometimes just plain weird... McMahon’s THE FALLS come at you like a brilliant, ambivalent letter from home -- expansive and precise, learned and hilarious, ironic but never condescending... It’s also a kick-ass movie... One of the year’s ten best films.”
Cameron Bailey, Now Magazine
"Call me crabby, but I, CURMUDGEON - made with little more that a consumer model camcorder and a desktop mirror by narcissistic misanthrope Alan Zweig (VINYL) - seemed thrilling precisely for spitting in the face of all that’s hot."
The Village Voice
"Although I, CURMUDGEON is a film about unhappy people, watching it is an extremely enjoyable experience. The success of the documentary ressts on the fact that Zweig and his tribe are all extremely articulate: They are well practiced in voicing their discontent in the form of sprightly anecdotes or sharply ectched putdowns."
Jeet Heer, The National Post
"If you’ve got a dry, dark sense of humour, and have ever yearned for the company of other people who don’t see the world as a giant playground for the happily oblivious, you’ll probably like I, CURMUDGEON. If not, go watch something else, you sad little brainwashed wuss."
Iain Ilich, Vue Weekly
“INTELLIGENCE travels from school rooms to video arcades, from hospitals to university labs and from the natural world to the artifi cial... to capture the ineffable, why and how we think... There’s always lots to see in a Kevin McMahon film. The viewer is placed in well-delineated environments and those sites change with artful rapidity. And the style is created not just through camera placement but through bravura uses of film technique... (His) overwhelming poetic sensibility informs his choices as a director."
Marc Glassman, Take One
YO-YO MA, INSPIRED BY BACH: THE MUSIC GARDEN
“THE MUSIC GARDEN, directed by Toronto documentarian Kevin McMahon, is a wry roller-coaster ride that chronicles Ma’s dream to transform Bach’s First Cello Suite into a vast formal garden, with the help of Boston-based designer Julie Moir Messervy. McMahon’s camera gets deep into the dark heart of municipal politics in Boston, where civic authorities gush enthusiasm for the project but ultimately let it die for lack of funds.”
Christopher Hume, The Toronto Star
“From producer Michael McMahon and writer/director Kevin McMahon, the filmmaking brothers known for their innovative work, TRUTH MERCHANTS boasts remarkable access to public relations professionals who, of all people, should have known better than to let cameras in.”
Antonia Zerbisias, The Toronto Star