Karen McGann
agent: Natalie Spanier - natalie@sternwild.com
Karen McGann is a BAFTA and EMMY nominated filmmaker, with several international awards for her films and series.
Her back catalogue includes documentary singles and series for HBO Max, BBC, Channel 4, Sky, National Geographic, and Disney +
Karen started her career as a news journalist and brings a reporter’s rigor and curiosity to all her films. She is able to adapt her storytelling sensibility to the needs of each individual film. From sensitive and nuanced, to forensic and probing.
A love of independent cinema and the subtle power of visuals to create tone and atmosphere is a key part of Karen’s filmmaking process, and her films combine an appreciation of intimate, everyday detail, with spectacle and scale.
She’s as comfortable working with high profile creative talent, as she is with ordinary individuals sharing extraordinary stories, and enjoys working collaboratively with subjects to create compelling narratives.
She has tackled topics like trans rights in Channel 4’s What Makes a Woman, serious crimes against women in BBC2’s Catching Britain’s Killers, and in the archive driven series Reframed Marilyn Monroe for CNN Films reassessed the screen icon’s life and career from a feminist perspective.
In her most recent series Marilyn Manson Unmasked which aired on Channel 4 in the UK in 2025, she examined alleged sexual assault and exploitation to critical acclaim…
Marilyn Manson: Unmasked is a meticulously assembled three-part account of the shock-rock musician’s career and what was allegedly happening behind the scenes…It teases out the question of how able people should have been to distinguish between performative transgressions designed to shock (and build the notoriety upon which his career depended) and a man hiding terrible proclivities in plain sight. Lucy Mangan, The Guardian ★ ★ ★ ★
Alongside her more journalistic work, Karen has also carved out a career as a director of A List talent, collaborating with Oscar winners Jessica Chastain (Reframed Marilyn Monroe, CNN), Cillian Murphy (Snowfall, HBO Max), and the iconic Jeff Goldblum, as series director of the award winning The World According to Jeff Goldblum (Nat Geo for Disney +).
In 2025 she was an originating director on the debut branded series for a major luxury watchmaker - conceiving, writing and directing exclusive access short documentaries with the some of the world’s leading athletes and artists.