Canadian Women Film Directors Database
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Manufactured Landscapes

Directed by Jennifer Baichwal
Canada, 2006 (documentary, 86 minutes, colour, English)
Also known as "Paysages fabriqués"
Manufactured Landscapes
Image: © Mongrel Media

Film Description:
"For almost three decades, internationally renowned Canadian artist Edward Burtynsky has been creating large scale photographs of landscapes transformed by industry: quarries, scrap heaps, factories, recycling yards, dams. Manufactured Landscapes follows Burtynsky to China as he travels the country capturing the evidence and effects of China's massive industrial revolution. Rarely witnessed sites such as the Three Gorges Dam (50% larger than any other dam in the world), the interior of a factory which produces 20 million irons a year, and the breathtaking scale of Shanghai's urban renewal are subjects for his lens and our motion picture camera. Shot in sumptuous super 16mm film, Manufactured Landscapes extends the narratives of Burtynsky's photographs, meditating on human impact on the planet without trying to reach simplistic judgements or reductive resolutions. In the process, the film shifts our consciousness about the world and the way we live in it."
-- National Film Board of Canada (source)

Film Credits (partial):
Produced by: Peter Starr, Gerry Flahive, Nick de Pencier, Daniel Iron, Jennifer Baichwal, Jeff Powis, Lucas Lackner, Paul Scherzer, Noah Weinzweig, Silva Basmajian, Shana Collier
Cinematography: Peter Mettler
Film Editing: Roland Schlimme
Music: Dan Driscoll
Production Company: Mercury Films, Foundry Films, National Film Board of Canada / Office national du film du Canada
(sources)

Awards won by Manufactured Landscapes

Notes about Manufactured Landscapes

(sources)

Quote by the Director [in French]

"Ce film [Manufactured Landscapes] ne porte pas uniquement sur la Chine, c'est à propos de nous, de notre monde et nous en faisons tous partie. Ce n'est qu'un archétype de ce qui va mal dans le monde."
-- Jennifer Baichwal (source)

Quote about Manufactured Landscapes

"The powerful and compelling Manufactured Landscapes is ostensibly a portrait of Edward Burtynsky, the celebrated Canadian photographer who specializes in large-scale studies of industrial vistas. But as anyone who's seen [Jennifer] Baichwal's previous work would expect, the film is far more than a straightforward portrait of an artist. Indeed, Manufactured Landscapes is as much about the aesthetic, social and spiritual dimensions of industrialization and globalization as it is about Burtynsky and his work."
-- Steve Gravestock (source)

Quote about Manufactured Landscapes [in French]

"Jennifer Baichwal affiche aussi un respect total pour le spectateur. Elle pose toutes les questions pertinentes, sans tenter de manipuler notre réflexion. Comme [Edward] Burtynsky, la cinéaste ne prêche surtout pas."
-- Mario Cloutier (source)

Bibliography for Manufactured Landscapes

Articles from Newspapers, Magazines, or News Websites

Web Sites about Manufactured Landscapes


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