Michael McGowan

As a filmmaker, Toronto-born Michael McGowan is a multi-hyphenate, most recently for Score: A Hockey Musical, where he served as not only as producer, writer and director, but also as lyricist.

For the feature One Week (2008), starring Joshua Jackson and Liane Balaban, McGowan was writer, director and producer. The film, distributed by Mongrel Media, took in $1.3 million at the Canadian box office, won numerous festival awards and garnered Joshua Jackson a Genie Award for best actor. It was picked up in the U.S. by IFC and has sold internationally.

McGowan wrote and directed Saint Ralph (2004), the critically-acclaimed feature that won an array of international prizes and was distributed in Canada, the U.S. and around the world, including major releases in Japan, Germany, France and South Korea. Winner of the WGC Canadian Screenwriting Award for Best Screenplay, the Directors Guild Award for Best Director, and nominated for five Genie Awards, including Best Feature Film, Saint Ralph also created a box office sensation in Japan. It also won the Grand Prix at the Paris Film Festival, the Audience Award at the London Film Festival and the People’s Choice Award for the Canadian Film Circuit.

McGowan is also the creator and executive producer of the stop-motion animated children’s TV series, Henry’s World, which is broadcast in over 50 countries worldwide and has won a variety of awards, including the Alliance for Children and Television Award of Excellence. McGowan is the best-selling author of the Young Adult novel Newton and the Giant. published in 2003 by HarperCollins, and the sequel Newton and the Time Travel Machine, released in 2008.