Jennifer Baichwal

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.

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.

In 2016, Baichwal was named a member of the Toronto International Film Festival Board of Directors.

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.

Baichwal is married to cinematographer and director Nicholas 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.

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."

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.

Baichwal 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 died from heart-related issues.