Biography

Jacques Giraldeau (1927-2015) was a Canadian documentary filmmaker from Quebec. He spent most of his career at the National Film Board of Canada and became known primarily for his films about the history of Quebec as seen through the eyes of its artists. He had a fondness for the avant-garde and many of his films are considered to be experimental. Giraldeau was born and raised in Montreal, and studied sociology and philosophy at the Université de Montréal where, with Jacques Parent, he co-founded Quebec's first film club. He also co-founded the Student Film Commission, acted as editor of the magazine Découpages and contributed film criticism to the newspaper Le Front Ouvrier.Upon graduation, Giraldeau moved to Ottawa and joined the National Film Board of Canada (NFB), where he became friends with Michel Brault. In 1953, he left the NFB and set up his own company, Studio 7, through which he produced programming for Radio-Canada (CBC Quebec), including the 39-episode series for young people, Petites Médisances, which he and Brault created in the Direct Cinema style—Giraldeau called it "image journalism". In 1962, he returned to the NFB and remained there until his retirement in 1995, returning in 2007 for an NFB co-production, The Fleeting Shadow of Things, which is one of his best-known films.With Guy L. Coté, and others, Giraldeau co-founded the Association of Quebec Directors and, in 1964, the Museum of Canadian Cinema, aka "Cinémathèque Canadienne", which would become the Cinémathèque Québécoise. Also in 1964, Giraldeau organized North America's first international symposium on sculpture; the Montreal event became his award-winning film The Shape of Things.At the 1995 International Festival of Films on Art, a formal tribute was paid to Giraldeau. It was also the occasion of the NFB's release of many of Giraldeau's films in a VHS compilation; an expanded, 13-DVD compilation was released in 2009.In 1996, Giraldeau was awarded the Prix Albert-Tessier, the lifetime achievement award in cinema from the Quebec government's Prix du Québec.

In 2000, the Canada Council awarded him the Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts