Mary McGuckian (born 27 May 1963) is a film director, producer and screenwriter from Northern Ireland. Her interest in theatre and politics led her to follow an autodidactic post graduate education in literature, theatre, acting and directing on various courses in London, Paris and Italy. During which time she wrote a number of avant-garde plays and movement pieces which were variously produced in England and Ireland. Most acclaimed was probably her long-running stage adaptation of Brian Merriman's poem, "The Midnight Court". Returning to Ireland, she continued to work as an actor and playwright until invited to write screenplays by various producers in the emergent Irish film industry of the early 1990s. At this point, she set up her own company, Pembridge Productions, to develop and produce feature film projects. The company was active as a co-producer on many Irish feature films and also produced three pictures which she wrote and directed. Words Upon the Window Pane, (adapted from the play by WB Yeats), This Is the Sea, (an adaptation of her own play 'Hazel' and Best, (the life story of Northern Irish footballer George Best); all essentially Irish subjects rooted in her cultural heritage. In 2001, she established Pembridge Pictures in the UK to develop and finance a slate of pictures for a long-term international production strategy by accessing UK tax-incentive based funding in co-production with treaty partners of the UK such as the EU treaty countries and Canada. The first of these to commence principal photography was her adaptation of the Thornton Wilder classic, The Bridge of San Luis Rey, delivered in May 2004, which shot in Spain. More lately, she has turned her interest and attention to the exploration of innovative film-making techniques aimed at integrating a more collaborative style of production in order to prioritize performance values with the aim of making contemporary drama more compelling to audiences. Using a combination of modern script s
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