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Director of Photography CV for Nick de Pencier [doc]

Equipment List [xls]

Biography

Nicholas de Pencier is a director, producer, and director of photography working in documentary, performing arts, and dramatic film. He is President of Mercury Films Inc., the Toronto based production company he shares with his partner, Jennifer Baichwal.

De Pencier was a producer resident in the Canadian Film Centre's 1997 Producers' Lab, and produced one of four Short Dramatic Films, Cold Feet, which was selected for the Toronto International Film Festival and the Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival, among others. He then produced Jim Allodi's feature film The Uncles, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2000, was picked up for distribution in Canada by Odeon Films, and named one of year's top ten Canadian films by the Toronto International Film Festival Group.

As a cinematographer, de Pencier regularly shoots factual TV series, modern dance, rock videos (Gord Downie, Skydiggers, Bob Wiseman), and documentaries. He has also directed, produced and photographed eight modern dance performance films which have received national and international broadcasts and won awards at Canadian and international festivals. His performance film Streetcar, was nominated in 2004 for a Performing Arts Best Direction Gemini; the film's choreographer and lead, Peter Chin, won for Best Performance in a Performing Arts Program or Documentary. It was also nominated for a Banff Rockie Award. Other Cinematographer credits include the documentaries Tre Donne, The Quest for the Unicorn, A Murder of Crows, and Deux de la Vague which premiered at Cannes in 2009.

As both producer and director of photography his credits include the feature documentary Let It Come Down: The Life of Paul Bowles which received a Genie nomination in 1998, a Banff Rockie nomination in 1999 and won the International Emmy Award for Best Arts Documentary in 1999. Also The Holier It Gets, a documentary filmed in Canada and India, which won Best Cultural and Best Independent Canadian Documentary at Hot Docs, 2000, and garnered Geminis for best writing, editing, and direction in a documentary series, as well as a nomination for The Donald Brittain award for best documentary and a nomination for a Chalmers Award in 2001. In 2002 he produced and shot the documentary: The True Meaning of Pictures about the work and world of Kentucky photographer Shelby Lee Adams, which premiered at TIFF and then Played at the Sundance Film Festival. It was nominated for two Gemini Awards and won in the Best Arts Documentary category. This was followed in 2003 by Hockey Nomad based on Dave Bidini's best-selling book Tropic of Hockey about hockey in unlikely places around the globe which was nominated for a Banff Rockie Award, as well as three Geminis, and won the Best Sports Documentary Gemini. He also co-directed, produced and photographed for TVOntario a series of 40 short profiles on artists who have received Ontario Arts Council grants over the past 40 years.

He produced the documentary Manufactured Landscapes, which won the Chum City Award for best Canadian feature at TIFF 2006, the Genie Award for best Documentary, and was distributed in 15 countries. He also directed and partially shot the High Definition feature documentary Four Wings and a Prayer, about the migration of the Monarch butterfly which won the Grand Prix Pariscience, the Banff Rockie Award for best Wildlife and Natural History Program, the Jules Verne Nature Award, and was nominated for Geminis for best Science Documentary, Best Cinematography and Best Direction. Most recently he was producer and director of photography on Act of God - a feature documentary about the metaphysics of being struck by lightning, which was selected as the opening night film for Hot Docs International Film Festival as well as an official selection in competition at the Karlovy-Vary International Film Festival in 2009. In 2010 he is shooting the documentary adaptation of Payback, Margaret Atwood's Massey Lecture on debt.