Angus Macqueen

Director and Executive Producer

Angus set up Ronachan Films to help foster a tradition of documentary filmmaking of passion and commitment. His work has been shown and broadcast across the world – winning BAFTA, EMMY, RTS, IDA, PEABODY, COLOMBIA JOURNALISM, PRIX EUROPA among many others.

See a selection of Angus Macqueen’s work. Angus Macqueen’s CV

“Angus Macqueen has a body of work which stands alongside the photography, say, of Josef Koudelka, the journalism of Neal Ascherson or the fiction of John Berger, in humanising our understanding of the changes that have affected those at the margins.” – Tim Adams in the London Observer.

Selected Filmography:

FIRST CONTACT : THE LOST TRIBE & THE END OF EDEN (feature version)
1 X 50 & 1 X 90. Director, Ronachan Films / Pacha Films
Channel 4, NDR/ARTE, Netflix
Inspired by footage of “first contact” with an isolated tribe in the Amazon, the film goes to find out what drove them out and what has happened since.

THE LEGEND OF SHORTY
1X90 – Director, Ronachan Films.
Distributed by Protagonist. Film Four, Frontline WGBH and Discovery Latin America
The film makers go in search of – and find – the most wanted man in the world: El Chapo Guzman, the head of the world’s biggest drugs cartel.

“Astonishing access” – The Hollywood Reporter

AUNG SAN SUU KYI: THE CHOICE
1X60 – Producer/Director, Ronachan Films for BBC
A mix of current affairs and biography, this film captures a country and a politician revered around the world at a crossroads.

“A film about one of the towering leaders of our age by one of our foremost film-makers” –The Times.

CHILEAN MINERS : 17 DAYS BURIED ALIVE
1X60 – Producer/Director, Ronachan Films for BBC & TVN Chile
Six of the miners remember the untold story of the days underground when no one outside knew if they were alive.

“another gem by Angus Macqueen….making the unimaginable, imaginable….pulled off that Day of the Jackal trick of making outcome almost unbearably tense” – The Spectator

HOSTAGE IN THE JUNGLE
1 X 97 & 1 X 60 – Producer/Director, Ronachan Films for French, German, Colombian TV and the BBC (2010)
With Ingrid Betancourt’s first ever documentary interview, a film that tells the story of her six years in the jungle – including interviews with both fellow hostages and her captors.

“This astounding film….the elation is overwhelming” – The Times
“An astonishing study of extremity” – The Guardian

COCAINE
3 X 50 & 1 X 45 – Producer/Director for October Films
Three intimate but epic stories about this iconic drug and the people who produce it, use it and fight it.
Set in Peru, Brazil and Colombia.

“The simplicity and resonance of great tragedy. Television is full of horrors, but rarely does it deliver like this – a kick in the gut” – The Sunday Telegraph
“Outstanding explorations of power, and intimate personal dramas….more dramatic than fiction while revealing the universal forces behind” – The Times

THE LAST PEASANTS
3 x 50 – Producer/Director for October Films for Channel 4 (2003)
Following 3 families in a remote Romanian village in the Maramures area, where every family has an illegal immigrant abroad. Shot in Romania, London, Paris and Dublin. A series about the death of an old world and the reality of the new.

“Extraordinarily memorable….a privileged glimpse of the people of rural Romania at a pivotal point in their history” – The Observer
“Like some epic rural novel, complete with universal themes, enacted on a tiny stage, with the ability to shift your sympathies from one character to another” – The Daily Telegraph

GULAG
1 x 180 & 3 x 60 – Producer/Director for BBC for BBC/TLC (1999)
An epic journey from the banks of the Volga Canal outside Moscow to the arctic wastes of Siberia via the heart of Russia and its people.
“Angus Macqueen’s epic documentary is a masterpiece” – The Daily Mail
“However precious our time and fine our sensibilities, we owe to mankind to watch Gulag” – The Financial Times

DANCING FOR DOLLARS
2 x 50 – Producer/Director for Channel 4 (1997)
Two films about the Russian ballet – losing 2 million dollars in Las Vegas and mired in corruption in St Petersburg, all against the background of glorious archive and history.

“Unique ballet films…the beauty caught up in the terrible realities of Soviet and Russian realities” – The Times

DEATH OF YUGOSLAVIA
5 x 50 & 1 x 180. Producer/Director for Brook Lapping Associates for BBC / ORF (1995)
The inside political story of the war in Yugoslavia. Interviews with Milosevic, Karadzic, Tudjman, and all the major players in the war.

“a landmark that cannot be ignored” – Le Monde
“extraordinary” – The New York Times

THE SECOND RUSSIAN REVOLUTION
3 x 50 (out of 8), Director for Brian Lapping Associates for the BBC
Three films telling the inside story of Mikhail Gorbachev’s political revolution with the only documentary interview with him as Soviet President. Includes interviews with all the major figures.
If the Moscow coup plotters had seen “The Second Russian
Revolution” airing this week, they might have done a better job of ousting Mikhail Gorbachev.” – US News and World Report – Richard Perle

“A spellbinding documentary about what it is like to perch on the cusp of history.” – The Observer