Max Pugh is an award-winning Franco-British feature documentary and fiction film director who has also gained critical acclaim worldwide for his video art and installation work with the composer and filmmaker Michael Nyman. Max has also directed television drama and written and directed short films supported by the UK Film Council.
Max is currently producing THE MANY LIVES OF JAMES LOVELOCK the film adaptation of the 2024 biography of the scientist James Lovelock (Canongate Books), INTERBEING, the documentary biopic of the Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh for Speakit Films, and the feature drama NARCISSUS with Francesco Virga at MIR Cinematografica and Sara Bonadkar of Makadam Films.
Between July-October 2022 Max premiered his three-screen feature-length video installation NOTHING WILL EVER STOP THE MUSIC at the MADD Museum in Bordeaux, France.
His short biographical documentary on the life of Thich Nhat Hanh, co-produced with Marc J. Francis A CLOUD NEVER DIES was also released in 2022. Their film WALK WITH ME (2017 Speakit Films / SunnyMarch) was co-directed and co-produced with Marc J. Francis. WALK WITH ME is represented by WestEnd Films and opened in cinemas worldwide in autumn 2017, after premieres at SXSW and the BFI London Film Festival.
In his 2014 feature documentary THE ROAD TO FREEDOM PEAK, narrated by Djimon Hounsou and made for Foxtel & Screen Australia, was released in Australia to critical acclaim and nationwide press coverage. The film secured a worldwide deal with Netflix.
2014 saw the release of WAR WORK, a major new film with Michael Nyman commemorating WW1 which premiered at the Cité de la Musique in Paris before moving on to Berlin, Budapest and the 2015 Sheffield Film Festival. In 2019 Max completed work on a new feature documentary with Michael Nyman entitled NYMAN’S EARTHQUAKES which premiered at the Milan International Film Festival and was then presented as a multi-screen installation in Florence.
In 2010, the film NYMAN WITH A MOVIE CAMERA premiered at Toronto before special screenings at the Berlin Film Festival, Sydney Opera House and the New York Museum of Modern Art.