Michael Downey is a cinematographer, director and producer who works on feature documentaries, series and short films. He was nominated for two emmys in 2024, one for Frontline's Elon Musk documentary, another for WSJ's documentary on Wagner. His clients include the BBC, Channel 4, Disney+, National Geographic, The New York Times, PBS, VICE, A&... Read More

Michael Downey is a cinematographer, director and producer who works on feature documentaries, series and short films. He was nominated for two emmys in 2024, one for Frontline's Elon Musk documentary, another for WSJ's documentary on Wagner. His clients include the BBC, Channel 4, Disney+, National Geographic, The New York Times, PBS, VICE, A&E, various production companies and studios. Downey's most recent conflict work covered the Russian invasion of Ukraine for The New York Times, the staff coverage of which received a Pulitzer for international news coverage of the invasion of Ukraine, and of which Downey was the recipient of an Edward R. Murrow Award in 2023. He recently wrapped working on the feature documentary ‘Defiant’ with Academy Award nominated filmmakers Karim Amer and Mike Learner as DP and the film premiered at TIFF 2023.

Downey's first work on a documentary feature was in 2015 with Academy Award winning filmmaker Eva Orner on her film ‘Chasing Asylum’ as a segment DP for Lebanon. The film received an AACTA Award for Best Feature Length Documentary.

In 2022, Downey received the Picture of the Year International’s Documentary Award of Excellence for his short documentary on the dying bird language in northern Turkey. That year, he also began work as DP on the adventure/natural history blue-chip six-part series titled ‘Lift the Ice’, which was filmed across five continents for Beach House Pictures and Curiosity Studios. The year before he was approached by Emmy award-winning documentary filmmaker Rita Baghdadi to assist as an additional cinematographer on her film ‘Sirens,’ a coming-of-age documentary and Sundance selection for 2021.

In 2017, Downey worked on his first food and travel series with Chef Nigel Slater OBE as DP for BBC2. His earlier work saw him cover major political events in the MENA region, such as the civil wars in Libya and Syria, the Syrian refugee crisis in Lebanon, the 2011 Arab Spring uprisingin Egypt, as well as the conflict in Iraq. Read Less