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Kevin McMahon began his career as a newspaper journalist at the St. Catharines Standard, where he received various awards, including a top prize from the Canadian Centre for Investigative Journalism and a nomination for a Governor General’s Award for public service journalism.
After five years dedicated to print, he shifted his focus to documentary film and eventually gained a reputation as one of the country’s most innovative directors. In the last 20 years, Kevin has won a variety of major awards, worked with broadcasters from all over the world and become a mentor to younger directors. In 2006 he served as Official Mentor of the Hot Docs festival in Toronto, North America’s premier documentary showcase. In 2007 Hot Docs mounted a selected retrospective of Kevin’s films.
As a producer, Kevin recently oversaw the 50-episode series THINGS THAT MOVE, about the history and science of motion, and WORKING OVER TIME, a four-hour telling of Canada’s history as seen through manual labour.
As a story editor, Kevin helped shape the feature documentaries I, CURMUDGEON, A PERFECT FAKE and FOUR WINGS AND A PRAYER.
As a writer, he authored the book Arctic Twilight and contributes essays to various publications, including POV Magazine, The Toronto Star and CBC Radio’s Ideas. He holds degrees from Brock and Carleton universities and the University of Bristol in England. Kevin is a partner in Primitive Entertainment, a Toronto production company specializing in high quality documentary.
He lives in Toronto with his three teenaged children.
Michael McMahon is the President and Executive Producer of Primitive Entertainment.
Over the last twenty years Michael has produced some of Canada’s most daring and critically acclaimed documentary features and television series. His feature documentary credits include THE FALLS; IN THE REIGN OF TWILIGHT; McLUHAN'S WAKE; FOUR WINGS AND A PRAYER; LOVABLE and I, CURMUDGEON, amongst others.
His documentary television credits include the 50 part series ANCESTORS IN THE ATTIC; the four part series WORKING OVER TIME; the three part series COD: THE FISH THAT CHANGED THE WORLD; and the 50 part series THINGS THAT MOVE.
In 2009, Michael produced the feature documentaries WATERLIFE (Special Jury Prize, Canadian Feature - Hot Docs) and A HARD NAME (Top Ten Audience Favourite - Hot Docs).
In addition to being a participant at all of the major documentary markets and conferences, Michael has been a guest speaker at MIPCOM, Sunnyside of the Doc, Sheffield International Documentary Festival, Small Screen Big Picture, Hot Docs, and the World Congress of Science Producers, as well as a guest lecturer at Ryerson University and the Canadian Film Centre.
Active in the documentary community, Michael serves as Co-Chair of the Board of Directors of Hot Docs, and sits on the Industry Advisory Committee of the Toronto International Film Festival Group. He is the Co-Chair of the Toronto Executive of the Documentary Organization of Canada.
Michael is married and the father of twin boys. He lives in Toronto, Canada.
Kristina McLaughlin is Vice President, Business Affairs at Primitive Entertainment.
As a producer and partner in Primitive Entertainment, Kristina has worked on some of the most critically acclaimed Canadian documentaries of the last decade.
Her most recent producing credits include the feature documentaries LOVABLE, by Alan Zweig; the four part series WORKING OVER TIME for History Television; and the feature film FOUR WINGS AND A PRAYER, winner of the Best Wildlife and Natural History Program at the 2008 Banff World Television Festival
Her other producing credits include THE FACE OF VICTORY; STOLEN SPIRITS OF HAIDA GWAII (2005 Gemini Award winner for Best History Documentary and Best Direction in a Documentary Program); MCLUHAN’S WAKE, a feature length documentary by Kevin McMahon that opened the Canadian Spectrum program of Hot Docs (2002) and was invited to the prestigious Joris Ivens competition at the International Documentary Festival of Amsterdam
She is currently producing Season IV of the History Television series ANCESTORS IN THE ATTIC.
