Jennifer Baichwal has been directing and producing documentaries for over 20 years. Her films have played all over the world and won multiple awards nationally and internationally, including an International Emmy, three Gemini Awards, and Best Cultural and Best Independent Canadian Documentary at Hot Docs, for features such as Let It Come Down: The Life of Paul Bowles, The Holier It Gets, Act of God, and Payback. Manufactured Landscapes won, among others, TIFF’s Best Canadian Film and Al Gore’s Reel Current Award. It played theatrically in over 15 territories worldwide, and was named as one of “150 Essential Works In Canadian Cinema History” by TIFF in 2016. The feature documentary Watermark premiered at TIFF 2013, and won the Toronto Film Critics Association prize for Best Canadian Film. It has since been released in eleven countries. In recent years, de Pencier and Baichwal have expanded into film installation work, and have exhibited at the Art Gallery of Ontario and Nuit Blanche, among others. Baichwal and de Pencier were also co-directors of Long Time Running, a feature documentary on the Tragically Hip’s poignant final tour. The documentary premiered at TIFF 2017, and was released by Elevation Pictures, and broadcast by Bell and Netflix. Baichwal sits on the board of Swim Drink Fish Canada, and is a member of the Ryerson University School of Image Arts Advisory Council. She has been a Director of the Board of the Toronto International Film Festival since 2016, and is a passionate ambassador of their Share Her Journey campaign, a five-year commitment to increasing participation, skills, and opportunities for women behind and in front of the camera.
Edward Burtynsky is known as one of the world’s most respected photographers. His remarkable photographic depictions of global industrial landscapes are included in the collections of over sixty major museums around the world, including the National Gallery of Canada, the Tate Modern in London, the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum and the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in California. His imagery explores the collective impact we as a species are having on the surface of the planet; an inspection of the human systems we’ve imposed onto natural landscapes. Burtynsky’s distinctions include the TED Prize, The Outreach award at the Rencontres d’Arles, the Roloff Beny Book award, and the Rogers Best Canadian Film Award. He sits on the board of directors for CONTACT: Toronto’s International Photography Festival, and The Ryerson Gallery and Research Center. In 2006 he was awarded the title of Officer of the Order of Canada; in 2016 he received the Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts. In 2018 he was named Photo London’s Master of Photography and the Mosaic Institute’s Peace Patron. Most recently he was honoured with the 2019 Arts & Letters Award at the Canadian Association of New York’s annual Maple Leaf Ball. He currently holds eight honorary degrees.