Taran Davies

Taran Davies founded Wicklow Films in 1994. He is a producer, director, cameraman and writer. Born in New York, Taran grew up in England and then attended Harvard University where he studied photography and video. Around the Sacred Sea, his first film, told the story of his five-month expedition riding horseback around Siberia's Lake Baikal. While on this journey he developed a fascination with Russia, its southern borderlands, and the many cultures and religions of the region, especially Islam. Taran has since made documentaries about the history of Islam, the roots of Jihad and the life of Muslims throughout much of the Islamic belt known to the Russians as "the Near Abroad". His film The Land Beyond the River, about his journey through Central Asia, was the first documentary shot entirely on Hi 8 to be broadcast nationwide by PBS.

The terrorist attacks of September 11th marked a major turning point in Taran's life. At the time he was considering a career in finance and was preparing his application to business school. Shortly after the attacks, he resigned his part time job at an investment firm and set out to make Afghan Stories. Having witnessed and fled the collapse of the World Trade Center, Taran decided to commit to making films that might shed light on conflict, its causes and effects in the region he knew best. Taran flew to Afghanistan the day his business school application was due. AFGHAN STORIES premiered less than a year later at the Venice Film Festival in September 2002. He has most recently completed MOUNTAIN MEN AND HOLY WARS, a documentary the Sundance Channel describes as "an eye-opening look at the centuries-old roots of Russia's bloody struggle with Islamic separatists in Chechnya and Daghestan".