About Homunculus Productions, LLC

The word "homunculus" refers to a functioning system thought to be run by a "little man" that lives inside it. Such a system includes human beings, as some inner entity or agent is somehow assumed to be in our brains, making things run. One example of this was Descartes' use of the homunculus to resolve his theory of dualism, that the soul and the body are two completely separate entities. He posited a "little man" behind the eye to process visual stimuli. Of course, this immediately raises the question of who is behind the "little man's" eyes - another little man (or a little woman)? And so on, ad infinitum.

Homunculus Productions, LLC, produces training films, industrials, PSAs, documentaries, and fiction films. We are the homunculus that translates the world from your eyes to your brain.

About Alison McMahan

Alison McMahan with a camera
Alison McMahan

Alison McMahan is a screenwriter and filmmaker. She is the president of Homunculus Productions. Her most recent film is Bare Hands and Wooden Limbs  narrated by Sam Waterston. She is currently in post-production on the feature documentary The Eight Faces of Jane. Her award-winning screenplays include ImprintedHeaven Sent, and Girl in Trunk (the latter two written with John Leary).

She has over twenty years of experience in film production, both in the U.S. and abroad. From 2001-2003 she held a Mellon Fellowship in Visual Culture at Vassar College where she built Memesis,  a virtual reality environment with a biofeedback interface for CAVEs. From 1997 to 2001 she was an associate professor, teaching film history and theory and new media at the University of Amsterdam. She has taught screenwriting in numerous venues, including the Hudson Valley Writer’s Association and the Emerson College extension program in the Netherlands. 

She is the author the award-winning book Alice Guy Blaché, Lost Visionary of the Cinema (Bloomsbury 2002), which was translated into Spanish by Plots Ediciones. The documentary, Be Natural, (Cannes 2018) is based in part on Lost Visionary. and.  She is also the author of  The Films of Tim Burton: Animating Live Action in Hollywood (Bloomsbury 2005)  as well as numerous newspaper and scholarly articles on film and new media.  Full list of publications here.

She has a BFA in Drama (Catholic University), an MFA in Film Production (New York University), MFA in Creative Writing (StoneCoast Program at the University of Southern Maine) and a Ph.D. in Film Studies (Union Institute & University). Represented by Gina Panettieri of Talcott Notch Literary.