Edward Burtynsky
Edward Burtynsky is a leading Canadian photographer and film producer. He was born in 1955 in St. Catharines, Ontario; in the bosom of a Ukrainian family. He graduated with a degree in Applied Arts and Photography from Toronto Metropolitan University in 1982 and in 1985 he founded Toronto Image Works; a center open to the artistic community of that city, which provides technical services and training in photography and digital image production. With a career of more than 40 years in the field of photographic production, Burtynsky is an active teacher and artist.
The landscapes outlined by the imposing General Motors plant in St. Catharines, Burtynsky's hometown, kickstarted the further development of his photographic work. With his camera, Burtynsky relentlessly explores the impact that we human beings have on planet earth.
His photographic series are part of the collections of more than 60 museums around the world, including the National Gallery of Canada, the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid , the Tate Modern in London and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in California. As a teacher and filmmaker Burtynsky has given lectures at the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.; George Eastman House in Rochester, New York; the Canadian Center for Architecture in Montreal; the Art Gallery of Ontario and Toronto Metropolitan University.
In the field of documentary film Burtynsky produced and co-directed with Jennifer Baichwal the award-winning trilogy of documentaries, Manufactured Landscapes (2006), Watermark (2013) and ANTHROPOCENE: The Human Epoch (2018).
Official website: https://www.edwardburtynsky.com/
Jennifer Baichwal
Jennifer Baichwal
Jennifer Baichwal is a Canadian documentary filmmaker, writer and producer. She was born in 1965 in Montreal, Quebec and grew up in Victoria, British Columbia. She studied Philosophy and Theology at McGill University. She earned her Master of Arts degree in 1994. Her British-Indian ancestry led her to visit India. She also resided, for a time, in Morocco.
During her artistic career, Baichwal became very quickly interested in documentary film. In interviews, she often comments that the documentary is, for her, a tool that "allows her to reflect on things that are happening in the real world in a creative way."
Her first feature film, Looking You in the Back of the Head, was in 1997. Since then, Baichwal has told stories linked to cross-cutting themes such as identity, life, death and faith. On several of her films, she works in collaboration with film director and producer Nicholas de Pencier, her partner. Together they founded the production company Mercury Films Inc.
In 2006, Baichwal and de Pencier teamed up with Edward Burtynsky to produce Manufactured Landscapes. The film recovers the records that the Canadian photographer made on one of his expeditions to China. Recently, the ANTHROPOCENE project brought them together again.
Official Website: http://mercuryfilms.ca/index.html
Nicholas de Pencier
Nicholas de Pencier
Nicholas de Pencier is a Canadian cinematographer and film producer. He was born in Toronto, Canada.
With more than 20 years of experience in the audiovisual field, de Pencier has made feature films and notable television series for CBC, PBS, Discovery, National Geographic and the History Channel. His topics of interest are eclectic; In general, his productions are crossed by contents linked to art and philosophy.
De Pencier is also part of the steering committee of the Hot Docs and DOC Toronto festivals and chairs Mercury Films Inc., the film production company, which he set up with his partner, documentary filmmaker Jennifer Baichwal. Together, they have worked on numerous artistic projects. Today the multidisciplinary ANTHROPOCENE project reunites them with the photographer Edward Burtynsky.
Official Website: http://mercuryfilms.ca/index.html