Making Movie History: Jacques Bensimon
2012 · 5m · Canada
Directed by Joanne Robertson
Genres: biography, documentary
Tones: contemplative
Jacques Bensimon recalls entering the NFB as a director in the early 1960s and later serving as commissioner from 2001 to 2006.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
A five-minute institutional hagiography about a guy's climb through the NFB ladder—it's exactly the kind of respectful, chronological biography that makes my skin crawl, though I'd watch it just to see if Robertson sneaks in something subversive beneath the surface.
Robertson positions this oral history within the lineage of NFB documentary practice itself—a film about the institution by the institution—with the formal restraint of someone who understands she's crafting a historical record, not a profile; the contemplative pacing honors both Bensimon's legacy and the medium's own traditions.
The real move here is Robertson's choice to let Bensimon's voice carry the entire weight of narrative while the image stays still and observational—it's a radical trust in the speaker's cadence and memory that transforms what could've been dusty archival into something intimate and earned.