‘Magilligan’ Follows Former Inmate Struggling With Life After Jail

When Ross McClean first met Ryan Craig back in 2019 while running workshops in a young offenders’ prison, he had no idea he would be filming the young man over the next six years.

The result is the Northern Irish director’s debut feature, “Magilligan,” which is premiering in competition at Visions du Réel, Switzerland’s leading documentary film festival.

Named after the prison where Ryan spent the best part of a decade between the ages of 18 and 28 after committing a violent crime as a teenager, the film is built around a central question: how much of a life is shaped by family and environment, and how difficult it is to break away.

McClean first met Ryan, whose family history is marked by prison and unrest, while shooting his short film “Hydebank” at the young offenders’ facility of the same name. “Magilligan” opens with an image that stayed with the director: Ryan tending sheep against the backdrop of the jail’s high walls as part of a prison farming program.

“Within the prison, there’s the sanctuary of the sheep and the farm. It’s a place where I could see he was truly relaxed and himself,” McClean tells Variety.

What unfolds is not a story of reintegration into society, but of a cycle: after spending most of his adult life inside, Ryan struggles to adapt to life outside and repeatedly returns to prison.

The sheep become one of the few constants in his life. In contrast to the outside world, the prison offers a form of structure – albeit a very restrictive one – where Ryan finds community and a sense of purpose.

That paradox is central to the film. Ryan’s release does not mark a clear break, but exposes how unprepared he is for life outside. “Even the idea of work for a lot of these guys that have been in prison for this length of time is just a monumental ask,” says the director.

After years in prison, basic expectations such as housing, employment and stability become difficult to meet.

McClean reflects that instability through the film’s visual structure, using landscapes to reflect Ryan’s internal state. The open countryside surrounding the prison is set against images of the city which he describes as “an intimidating and inhospitable place.”

“[The idea] was to talk about where Ryan can find peace,” explains McClean.

A line from Ryan’s mother brings that tension into focus. “I don’t think he’ll ever find peace,” she says – a moment the director describes as a turning point. “Where is this guy going to get peace… if it’s not his mother’s house, if it’s not the city, and if it’s not even this landing in prison?”

For a time, McClean admits, he hoped the story might take a different turn. “I did believe in a fairytale ending – that Ryan would walk off into the sunset with his flock of sheep, free. I still maybe do have this hope to an extent – that there is something there for him in this occupation that he’s found, which he’s really passionate about – but I also see the obstacles that this guy has to deal with from the outside.”

This question feeds into the film’s broader exploration of determinism. The director relates this to his own background: his grandfather, once deeply involved in Northern Ireland’s loyalist Orange Order, ultimately distanced itself from it, shaping the generations that followed. “My grandfather found a way to break free from that, which resulted in my father’s and my own neutrality and open-mindedness,” says McClean. “Ryan didn’t have the same deal.”

Yet the film leaves room for agency, however limited. “The very act of Ryan working with these sheep, even if it’s not entirely sustainable, is a sort of resilience: it’s turning your back on a certain life and a certain expectation,” he adds.

“Magilligan” was made with a minimal crew – often just McClean himself or one other person – a practical necessity in prison but also a way to maintain access. The director also co-wrote, co-produced and co-edited the film.

He says he hopes it will move beyond the festival circuit and open up wider discussions around incarceration. “It’s far too easy for prisons and the prisoner experience to be sensationalized and oversimplified,” he says. “I hope the film can hold on to that complexity and be used in spaces where it can spark debate.”

After a recent screening in a Scottish prison, he adds, “the images resonated with the young offenders and the debate that came from that really excited me.”

McClean is now developing a feature set in Belfast’s Shankill area, as well as a short fiction film about a loyalist paramilitary figure, continuing his focus on the social structures shaping life in Northern Ireland.

Produced by Bronte Stahl and McClean with co-producer Roisín Geraghty, Magilligan is a U.K.-Ireland-U.S. co-production supported by the BFI Doc Society, Northern Ireland Screen, Screen Ireland and SWR/Arte and the LEF Foundation Moving Image Fund.

The film will world premiere in the international competition at Visions du Réel on April 19.