Jennifer Baichwal | |
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![]() Baichwal at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival, 2009 | |
Born | 1965 Montreal, Quebec, Canada |
Occupation | Filmmaker |
Notable work | Manufactured Landscapes |
Spouse | Nicholas de Pencier |
Website | http://www.mercuryfilms.ca |
Jennifer Baichwal is a Canadian documentary filmmaker, writer and producer.
Baichwal was born in Montreal, Quebec and raised in Victoria, British Columbia. [1] She is the daughter of Krishna Baichwal Sr. a cardiothoracic surgeon, and Elvina Baichwal. Together they had four children Jennifer, Krishna Jr., Elizabeth and Kristine. She is of Indian and British heritage. [2] In 1985, she traveled to Morocco and lived on a farm, inspired by the writing of Paul Bowles, who would become the subject of her first feature-length documentary. [3] [4] Baichwal studied philosophy and theology at McGill University, writing her Master's thesis on Reinhold Niebuhr and receiving her master's in arts in 1994. [3] In 1995, Baichwal traveled with her family to India to scatter the ashes of their late father who had died from heart-related issues. [2]
Baichwal is married to cinematographer and director Nicholas de Pencier. [5] They were brought together by Baichwal's classmate, Canadian journalist Evan Solomon, after he had suggested de Pencier when she needed a cinematographer for her film. [6] Together, they have two children, a son Magnus born in 2000 and a daughter Anna born in 2003. [2] [6] The couple started a production company in 2000, originally under the name Requisite Productions, now called Mercury Films. [7]
After completing her master's at McGill, Baichwal decided to pursue documentary film work as she found that it provided her the right avenue to explore the questions and issues that she had studied in her program. [8] [9] Baichwal on her career choice: "I wanted to explore these questions of the human condition, but in a medium that was more lateral and more emotionally accessible than an academic paper." [9] She has stated that the documentary "allows you to reflect on ... things that are happening in the real world in a way that is creative". [9] Her films often attempt to investigate problems within documentary film form. She says: "There has to be some kind of mystery as well - a meta-level problem that the film becomes a response to. Our Paul Bowles film is about the impossibility of biography. The Holier It Gets is about the perils of confessional work, and The True Meaning of Pictures is about issues of representation. Manufactured Landscapes, proceeding from Edward Burtynsky's photographs, is about changing consciousness through witnessing the places we are all responsible for, but normally never get to see." [8] [10]
Baichwal's production company has produced most of her films, along with other short films and documentaries including The Hockey Nomad and Black Code, the latter of which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2016. [7] [11]
Many of her films' subjects are artists of other mediums than film. [8] [12] [13] In an interview with the Seventh Art, Baichwal mentions how she is drawn to artists, stating: "There is something about art that can't be paraphrased and just living in the complexity of that world is very rich for me..." [8]
In 2016, Baichwal was named a member of the Toronto International Film Festival Board of Directors. [14] [15]
Since their initial collaboration in 1995 and with the exception of Manufactured Landscapes, all of Baichwal's films have been shot by her husband Nick de Pencier.
Looking You in the Back of the Head is a short television documentary produced in 1995 featuring 13 Canadian women exploring what they think of their own identity. [3] [16]
Let It Come Down: The Life of Paul Bowles is a documentary biography on the American writer Paul Bowles. Made near the end of Bowles' life, Baichwal was able to screen the film for the author before his death in 1999. [4] [12] She says of the experience viewing the film with her subject: "It was very important for me that he see [the film] before he died; he had just turned 88. I was petrified as to what he would think of it, he's a real misanthrope and recluse. I got to his place, and I wanted him to watch it after I left and then write to me. But he was insistent. So he put it on, and he has quite bad glaucoma, so he was sitting six inches from the screen. I shut the door, and I kind of panicked for 75 minutes while he was watching it." [4]
The Holier It Gets is a documentary about Baichwal and her siblings pilgrimage to India to put their father's ashes in the Ganges river. It was filmed on 16mm by Nick de Pencier. The film explores themes of grief, closure, the afterlife and spirituality.
The True Meaning of Pictures: Shelby Lee Adams' Appalachia is a documentary on the work of renowned and controversial American photographer Shelby Lee Adams. The film takes a layered approach to Adams' work, it features interviews with the photographer, his subjects and his critics. The film's title comes from one of Adam's subjects and defenders in the face of accusations of exploitation and stereotypes from the photographer. [12]
Notable amongst Baichwal's features, the documentary Manufactured Landscapes focuses on the work of Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky in one of his expeditions to China. The photographs, taken for his China series, provide the frame for the film that explores the effects that rapid and recent industrialization has had on the environment in this manufacturing and economic superpower. [17]
Act of God is a documentary about the metaphysical questions surrounding the event of being struck by lightning. [8] It features various accounts from people who have either been struck lightning or witnessed the act. It looks into scientific, cultural and religious interpretations of lightning showers from around the world. The film features narration from writer Paul Auster and centers his experience witnessing his childhood friend succumb to a fatal lightning strike. [12]
Payback is a documentary film adaptation of Canadian writer Margaret Atwood's non-fiction book Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth.
Watermark , the second collaboration between Baichwal and Burtynsky, sees the photographer co-directing the film alongside her. The documentary looks into the abuse of water, its effect and the dependence as water as a source of life. The film is accompanied by Burtynsky's series titled Water which he produced while filming the documentary. [8]
Baichwal and de Pencier directed The Tragically Hip documentary Long Time Running , documenting the 2016 farewell tour of the Canadian band following lead singer Gord Downie's diagnosis of terminal brain cancer. It was released in 2017. [18] [19]
Anthropocene: The Human Epoch is Baichwal's third collaboration with Burtynsky. The documentary explores humanity's aggregate impacts on the natural world, and whether they justify the creation of a new geologic epoch, equivalent to the Holocene or Pleistocene. It was released in September, 2018. [3]
Year | Award | Category | Title | Result |
---|---|---|---|---|
1998 | Genie Award | Best Feature Length Documentary | Let it Come Down: The Life of Paul Bowles | Nominated |
1999 | Hot Docs | Best Biography | Let it Come Down: The Life of Paul Bowles | Won |
1999 | International Emmy Award | Best Arts Documentary | Let it Come Down: The Life of Paul Bowles | Won |
2000 | Hot Docs | Best Independent Canadian Film | The Holier It Gets | Won |
2000 | Hot Docs | Best Cultural Documentary | The Holier It Gets | Won |
2000 | Gemini Award | Best Writing in a Documentary Program or Series | The Holier It Gets | Won |
2000 | Gemini Award | Best Editing | The Holier It Gets | Won |
2000 | Gemini Award | Donald Brittain Award for Best Social/Political Documentary Program | The Holier It Gets | Nominated |
2003 | Gemini Awards | Best Arts Documentary Program or Series | The True Meaning of Pictures: Shelby Lee Adams' Appalachia | Won |
2003 | Gemini Award | Best Direction in a Documentary Program | The True Meaning of Pictures: Shelby Lee Adams' Appalachia | Nominated |
2006 | Genie Award | Best Documentary | Manufactured Landscapes | Won |
2006 | Toronto Film Critics Association | Rogers Best Canadian Film Award | Manufactured Landscapes | Won |
2006 | Toronto International Film Festival | Best Canadian Film Feature | Manufactured Landscapes | Won |
2006 | Gemini Award | Best Direction in a Performing Arts Program or Series | OAC Compendium | Nominated |
2013 | Toronto Film Critics Association | Rogers Best Canadian Film Award | Watermark | Won |
2014 | Canadian Screen Award | Ted Rogers Best Feature Length Documentary | Watermark | Won |
David Wharnsby is a Canadian film editor. He was married to director and actress Sarah Polley.
Edward Burtynsky is a Canadian photographer and artist known for his large format photographs of industrial landscapes. His works depict locations from around the world that represent the increasing development of industrialization and its impacts on nature and the human existence. It is most often connected to the philosophical concept of the sublime, a trait established by the grand scale of the work he creates, though they are equally disturbing in the way they reveal the context of rapid industrialization.
Shelby Lee Adams is an American environmental portrait photographer and artist best known for his images of Appalachian family life.
Manufactured Landscapes is a 2006 Canadian documentary film about the industrial landscape photography of Edward Burtynsky. It was directed by Jennifer Baichwal and is distributed by Zeitgeist Films. It was the first of three documentary collaborations between Baichwall and Burtynsky, followed by Watermark in 2013 and Anthropocene: The Human Epoch in 2018.
Lake Ontario Waterkeeper (LOW) is a Toronto-based environmental justice advocacy group founded in 2001, with Lake Ontario, the Great Lakes Basin, and allied waterways at heart. It is a licensed member of the New York–based Waterkeeper Alliance, and a registered Canadian charity. Lake Ontario Waterkeeper was founded by environmental lawyer Mark Mattson, and Krystyn Tully. In November 2017, Lake Ontario Waterkeeper, Fraser Riverkeeper, North Saskatchewan Riverkeeper and its digital platforms were all consolidated under the name “Swim Drink Fish”.
Daniel Iron is a Canadian film and television producer. After his company Foundry Films was acquired by Blue Ice Group, he became president of production of that company.
Peter Mettler is a Swiss-Canadian film director and cinematographer. He is best known for his unique, intuitive approach to documentary, evinced by such films as Picture of Light (1994), Gambling, Gods and LSD (2002), and The End of Time (2012). "His peripatetic lens is ever gravitating toward outsiders in search of ecstatic states", writes José Teodoro in Brick, "strange spectacles that defy straightforward documentation, and sacred places that promise some metaphysical deliverance. There are precedents for his methodologies—the films of Chris Marker and Werner Herzog come to mind—but Mettler’s gifts as an open and unobtrusive interviewer and his capacity to discover shared sensibilities between people of vastly diverse cultures and creeds feels singular."
Act of God is a 2009 Canadian documentary film that investigates the "metaphysical" effects of being struck by lightning. It was directed by Jennifer Baichwal and distributed by Zeitgeist Films. The film's world premier was at the 2009 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto on 30 April 2009. It went on general release in Canada on 1 May 2009, and limited release in the United States on 31 July 2009. The film's European premiere was at the 44th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in the Czech Republic on 11 July 2009.
Payback is a 2012 documentary film from Jennifer Baichwal based on Margaret Atwood's Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth, which investigates the concept of debt in societies across the world.
Watermark is a 2013 Canadian documentary film by Jennifer Baichwal and Edward Burtynsky. It concerns the history and use of water. Burtynsky was previously the subject of Baichwal's 2006 documentary, Manufactured Landscapes. The film looks at water use practices in ten countries around the world, including the United States, China and India.
The Green Film Network is an international association of environmental film festivals and was founded to support the work of international documentary filmmakers and promote films that raise awareness of environmental topics. The network currently comprises 32 festivals in 23 countries.
Long Time Running is a 2017 Canadian documentary film, directed by Jennifer Baichwal and Nicholas de Pencier. The film profiles the Canadian rock band The Tragically Hip during their Man Machine Poem Tour of 2016, which followed the band's announcement of lead singer Gord Downie's cancer diagnosis.
Nicholas de Pencier is a Canadian cinematographer and filmmaker. The spouse and professional partner of filmmaker Jennifer Baichwal in Mercury Films, he is the cinematographer and producer on most of her films as well as codirector of the films Long Time Running. and Anthropocene: The Human Epoch. He was also solo director of the 2016 documentary Black Code.
The 43rd annual Toronto International Film Festival was held from September 6 to 16, 2018. In June 2018, the TIFF organizers announced a program to ensure that at least 20 percent of all film critics and journalists given press accreditation to the festival were members of underrepresented groups, such as women and people of color. The People's Choice Award was won by Green Book, directed by Peter Farrelly.
Anthropocene: The Human Epoch is a 2018 Canadian documentary film made by Jennifer Baichwal, Nicholas de Pencier and Edward Burtynsky. It explores the emerging concept of a geological epoch called the Anthropocene, defined by the impact of humanity on natural development.
The Grizzlies is a 2018 Canadian sports drama film, directed by Miranda de Pencier. Based on a true story, the film depicts a youth lacrosse team that was set up to help combat an onslaught of youth suicide in the community of Kugluktuk, Nunavut.
The Filmmakers is a half-hour Canadian talk show that premiered on CBC Television on July 22, 2017. Each episode focuses on a specific Canadian film which airs in full after the episode. It is produced by CBC Arts.
Let It Come Down: The Life of Paul Bowles is a Canadian documentary film, directed by Jennifer Baichwal and released in 1998. The film is a portrait of American writer and composer Paul Bowles.
The Holier It Gets is a Canadian documentary film, directed by Jennifer Baichwal and released in 2000. The film is a personal document of Baichwal and her family on a pilgrimage to India, honouring their father Krishna's wishes to have his ashes scattered at the source of the Ganges following his death.
Roland Schlimme is a Canadian film editor known in particular for his work with filmmakers Peter Mettler and Jennifer Baichwal. He's also worked on several projects with artists Phillip Barker and Laura Taler as well as filmmakers Alison Murray and Cliff Caines.