Documentary filmmaker Simon Rodrigue (Hommes-des-Bois: Bûcherons de chantier, 2012) has created several works on the legacy of forestry in Quebec, a subject he spent years researching. Driven by his fascination for this topic as well as issues of identity, he travelled around Quebec, Ontario, and New Brunswick to collect the stories of many former workers in the pulp and paper industry for his latest documentary, When the Mill Closes.

Following her university studies in communication and film, Johanne Bergeron embarked on a career in the private sector. During a successful stint at Vent d’Est Films from 1992 to 1999, she produced such films as La République des Beaux-Arts – La Malédiction de la momie / The Republic of Fine Arts – The Curse of the Mummy (1998) by Claude Laflamme and Les survivants de l’apocalypse (1998) by the late Richard Boutet.

In 1999, she joined the National Film Board of Canada’s French Program as a line producer, working in close collaboration with producers Nicole Lamothe and Yves Bisaillon. She was subsequently put in charge of national and international co-productions and was appointed to the position of producer in 2007. In 2009, she joined the Quebec Studio where she continues to develop documentary film projects. Over the years, she has produced a number of films, including Junior (I. Lavigne and S. Thibault, 2007; Best Canadian Feature Documentary award, Hot Docs), Shots in the Dark (L. Moreco, 2008), The Battle of Rabaska (M. Duckworth and M. Isacsson, 2009), The Coca-Cola Case (G. Gutierrez and C. Garcia, 2009), They Think I’m Chinese! (N. Giguère, 2011) and, more recently, Triptych (R. Lepage and P. Pires, 2013) and Guidelines (J.-F. Caissy, 2014), which has been screened the world over, from Berlin to New York.

For the 75th anniversary of the NFB, Bergeron produced the content for the Making Movie History: A Portrait in 61 Parts website (D. Desjardins and J. Robertson), which went online in 2014, as well as The Red Path by Thérèse Ottawa, the first film resulting from the Tremplin NIKANIK competition.

Since 2008, Bergeron has also been responsible for the ACIC (Aide au cinéma indépendant – Canada) Unit, which provides support to many filmmakers year after year, enabling them to complete their films. They Dance at Night (I. Lavigne and S. Thibault, 2012), The Sower (J. Perron, 2014) and The Work of Days (B. Baillargeon, 2014) are eloquent examples that have been acclaimed at festivals.

In addition to serving on the board of the Montreal International Documentary Festival (RIDM) from 2002 to 2006, Bergeron expanded the partnership between the NFB and the René-Malo Chair at UQAM through the creation of a competition for most promising documentary filmmaker in 2010. In 2014, she brought the NFB, SODEC and the Conseil des arts de Montréal together to launch the Regard sur Montréal residency for culturally diverse emerging filmmakers.

Marie-Anne Raulet is a producer and consultant for cultural and social projects. She has worked for years in the cultural sector, particularly in film. From 2002 to 2010, she served as executive and artistic director of the Montreal International Documentary Festival, which attracted considerable acclaim from critics and audiences alike during her time there. As part of the festival, she founded Doc Circuit Montreal, the first documentary market in Quebec. She later headed up Coop Vidéo de Montréal, a production centre renowned for the quality of its films and auteurs, and then joined the National Film Board to lead a research project in Haiti, homeland of her maternal ancestry. In 2014 and 2015, she served as an interim producer at the NFB. She has since continued collaborating with various production companies, in particular Les Films du Tricycle, which is known for the poetic beauty of its documentaries. With her insatiable curiosity and keen interest in cultural expression, Raulet looks at film as a way to delve artistically into social issues and questions of identity. Very active in her field, she sits on the board of the magazine 24 images and is a founding member of Observatoire du documentaire and other organizations. She has won a Woman of Distinction Award in Entrepreneurship from the YWCA.

Colette Loumède began her career at the Coop Vidéo de Montréal, a group that has had a significant impact on Quebec cinema. Alongside Robert Morin, Lorraine Dufour, Jean-Pierre St-Louis, Louis Bélanger and others, she learned every aspect of the film trade long before becoming the veteran producer she is today.

Currently the head of the French Program Documentary Studio at the National Film Board of Canada (NFB), Loumède is known for producing documentaries that stand out for both their subject matter and artistry. Her productions have screened at many of the world’s top festivals, including Hot Docs, the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), the Berlin International Film Festival, Visions du réel, Sundance, and the Rencontres internationales du documentaire de Montréal (RIDM).

Loumède’s work is driven by a desire to produce films with meaningful content by auteurs intent on addressing the important issues of the day. She has worked with Serge Giguère, Richard Desjardins, Patricio Henriquez, Hugo Latulippe, Benoît Pilon, Sophie Deraspe, Zaynê Akyol, Claude Demers, Jean-François Caissy and many other contemporary Quebec directors.

Over the course of her career, Loumède has collaborated with a wide range of groups and people. She was responsible for analyzing documentary projects for SODEC, Quebec’s public film-financing body, and founded and led the documentary program at the Institut national de l’image et du son de Montréal (INIS), Quebec’s foremost professional cinema training institute. She is actively involved with the Documentary Network, RIDM and other festivals across multiple genres, and has regularly served on panels, juries, and many domestic and international platforms devoted to promoting auteur documentary.