Jennifer Baichwal

Baichwal was born in Montreal, Quebec and raised in Victoria, British Columbia.[https://www.straight.com/article-224137/jennifer-baichwal-explores-lightning-strikes-act-god "Jennifer Baichwal investigates lightning strikes in Act of God"]. The Georgia Straight, May 29, 2009. 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.{{Cite news|title=Portrait of a Journey: Documentary Chronicles Family's Pilgrimage to India to Release Father's Ashes.|last=Reid|first=Michael|date=April 18, 2001|work=Times - Colonist|id = {{ProQuest|345801996}}}} 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.{{Cite news|url=https://www.bates.edu/news/2015/09/18/documentary-filmmaker-to-discuss-her-craft-in-2015-otis-lecture/|title=Documentary filmmaker to discuss her craft in 2015 Otis Lecture|date=2015-09-18|access-date=2016-11-04}}{{Cite news|title=Jennifer Baichwal: Documentary filmmaker Jennifer Baichwal's most recent film was the Genie-nominated Let It Come Down: The Life of Paul Bowles.: [National Edition]|last=Thompson|first=Jane L|date=January 23, 1999|work=National Post|id = {{ProQuest|329380923}}}} 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. In 1995, Baichwal traveled with her family to India to scatter the ashes of their late father who had died from heart-related issues.

Baichwal is married to cinematographer and director Nicholas de Pencier.[https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/feel-the-electricity-1.788083 "Feel the electricity"]. CBC News, April 28, 2009. 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.{{Cite journal|last=Scott|first=Alec|year=2004|title=Shooting Stars: At a Time when the Genre has Hit an Influential High, a New Wave of Local Documentary Filmmakers is Producing some of the World's most Talked about Work.|journal=Toronto Life|volume=5|pages=67–72|id={{ProQuest|214378007}}}} Together, they have two children, a son Magnus born in 2000 and a daughter Anna born in 2003. The couple started a production company in 2000, originally under the name Requisite Productions, now called Mercury Films.{{Cite web|url=http://collectionscanada.gc.ca/pam_archives/index.php?fuseaction=genitem.displayItem&lang=eng&rec_nbr=3807652&rec_nbr_list=3807652|title=Archives Search - Library and Archives Canada}}

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.{{Citation|title=Jennifer Baichwal Interview|url=https://www.nfb.ca/film/jennifer_baichwal_interview/|access-date=2016-11-04}} 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." 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". 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."{{Cite web|url=http://realscreen.com/2007/04/01/page54-20070401/|title=Producer Profile: Mercury Films/Foundry Films/NFB (Canada)|access-date=2016-11-19}}

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.{{Cite web|url=http://www.tiff.net/films/black-code|title=Black Code|website=www.tiff.net|access-date=2016-11-19}}

Many of her films' subjects are artists of other mediums than film.{{Cite journal|last=Varga|first=Darrell|title=On True Meaning(s) and The Impossibility of Documentary in The Films of Jennifer Baichwal|journal=Brno Studies in English|volume=2013, vol. 39. Issue 2. Pp. 55-70.|hdl=11222.digilib/130309}}{{Cite news|title=HOT DOCS LIFETIME-ACHIEVEMENT AWARD|last=Lacey|first=Liam|work=The Globe and Mail|date=April 19, 2008|id = {{ProQuest|1371215613}}}} 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..."

In 2016, Baichwal was named a member of the Toronto International Film Festival Board of Directors.{{Cite web|url=http://playbackonline.ca/2016/09/28/tiff-shakes-up-board-of-directors/|title=TIFF shakes up Board of Directors|first=Regan|last=Reid |date=September 28, 2016|access-date=2016-11-04}}{{Cite web|url=http://povmagazine.com/blog/view/jennifer-baichwal-joins-tiff-board-of-directors|title=Jennifer Baichwal Joins TIFF Board of Directors – Point of View Magazine|website=povmagazine.com|access-date=2016-11-04}}

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.{{Cite web|url=http://www.newvideo.com/filmmakers/jennifer-baichwal-biography/|title=Jennifer Baichwal Biography|last=mthiele|website=www.newvideo.com|access-date=2016-11-04}}

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. 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."

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.

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.{{Cite book|title=The Cinematic Footprint: Lights, Camera, Natural Resources.|last=Bozak|first=Nadia|publisher=Rutgers University Press|year=2012|pages=88–120}}

Act of God is a documentary about the metaphysical questions surrounding the event of being struck by lightning. 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.

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.

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.{{Cite news|url=http://toronto.ctvnews.ca/tragically-hip-s-cross-country-tour-to-get-the-documentary-treatment-next-year-1.3140866|title=Tragically Hip's cross-country tour to get the documentary treatment next year|newspaper=Toronto|access-date=2016-11-19|language=en-CA}}{{Cite news|url=http://exclaim.ca/music/article/tragically_hip_man_machine_poem_tour_getting_treated_to_documentary|title=Tragically Hip's 'Man Machine Poem' Tour Getting Treated to Documentary|access-date=2016-11-19}}

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.

• Looking You in the Back of the Head (1997){{Cite web|url=http://films.nfb.ca/art-du-reel/director.php?id=15|title=ONF - Capturing Reality|website=films.nfb.ca|access-date=2016-11-04}}
• Let It Come Down: The Life of Paul Bowles (1998)
• The Holier It Gets (2000)
• The True Meaning of Pictures: Shelby Lee Adams' Appalachia (2002)
• Manufactured Landscapes (2006)
• Act of God (2009)
• Payback (2012)
• Watermark (co-directed with Edward Burtynsky) (2013){{cite news | url=https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/talented-veterans-emerging-directors-make-tiff-s-canadian-lineup-1.1350101?cmp=rss |title=Talented veterans, emerging directors make TIFF's Canadian lineup | date=7 August 2013 | publisher=CBC News |access-date=September 17, 2016}}{{cite news | url=http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/6b4614d6-2577-11e3-b349-00144feab7de.html?ftcamp=crm/email/2013928/nbe/ArtsLeisure/product#slide0 |title=Edward Burtynsky | date=September 27, 2013 | author=Clive Cookson | publisher=Financial Times |access-date=September 17, 2016}}
• Long Time Running (2017)
• Anthropocene: The Human Epoch (2018)
• Into the Weeds (2022)

{{reflist}}

• [http://www.mercuryfilms.ca/index.php?show=1 Jennifer Baichwal at Mercury Films]
• {{IMDb name|0047028}}
• [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roSNF_r3_ZY Interview with Jennifer Baichwal regarding her film Into the Weeds]

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Category:1965 births

Category:Canadian documentary film directors

Category:Film directors from Montreal

Category:McGill University alumni

Category:Canadian people of Indian descent

Category:Living people

Category:Canadian women film directors

Category:Canadian documentary film producers

Category:Canadian women film producers

Category:Directors of Genie and Canadian Screen Award winners for Best Documentary Film

Category:Canadian women documentary filmmakers

Category:Asian-Canadian filmmakers

Category:Canadian film production company founders

Category:Film producers from Quebec

Category:Canadian Screen Award winning writers