Jennifer Baichwal
| Jennifer Baichwal | |
|---|---|
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| Born | 1965 Montreal, Quebec, Canada |
| Occupation | Filmmaker |
| Notable work | Manufactured Landscapes |
| Website | http://www.mercuryfilms.ca |
Jennifer Baichwal is an award-winning Canadian documentary filmmaker, writer and producer.
Jennifer was born in Montreal, Quebec and raised in Victoria, British Columbia. 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. 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. 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 succumbed to heart-related issues.
Baichwal is married to cinematographer and director Nick de Pencier. They were brought together by Baichwal's classmate Canadian journalist Evan Solomon, after he had suggested de Pencier as she needed a cinematographer for her film. 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.
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. 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."
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