Jennifer Baichwal

Director, Producer, Writer

January 1, 1965 (61 years)
Jennifer Baichwal, director and producer, was born in Montréal and came to documentary filmmaking through studies in philosophy and theology at her hometown’s McGill University. She debuted 15 years ago with Looking You in the Back of the Head. Her first feature-length film, Let It Come Down: The Life of Paul Bowles (1998), was screened at a number of festivals and took Best Biography at the 1999 Hot Docs festival. In 1998 she and partner Nick de Pencier founded Mercury Films, and there she has produced, among other films, her own works The Holier It Gets and The True Meaning of Pictures, as well as the multiply-awarded festival favorite Manufactured Landscapes (about the work of artist Edward Burtynsky), one of the most noteworthy Canadian documentaries of the decade.

Known For

  • Manufactured Landscapes
    Manufactured Landscapes2006
  • Anthropocene: The Human Epoch
    Anthropocene: The Human Epoch2018
  • Watermark
    Watermark2013
  • Long Time Running
    Long Time Running2017
  • Payback
    Payback2012
  • The True Meaning of Pictures: Shelby Lee Adams' Appalachia
    The True Meaning of Pictures: Shelby Lee Adams' Appalachia2002
  • Act of God
    Act of God2009
  • Let It Come Down: The Life of Paul Bowles
    Let It Come Down: The Life of Paul Bowles1998
  • An Optimist’s Guide to the Planet
    An Optimist’s Guide to the Planet1 season
  • Into the Weeds
    Into the Weeds2022
  • Summit '72
    Summit '724 episodes
  • Wilfred Buck
    Wilfred Buck2024