Magnus Isacsson

Magnus Isacsson was born in Sweden in 1948 and immigrated to Canada in 1970. He studied political science at the University of Stockholm and the University of Montreal where he received his B.A. in 1973. When graduating, he received the Award for Best Results in the Faculty of Social Sciences . He has also studied history and cinema at McGill University and Concordia University in Montreal. From 1972 to 1980 Isacsson produced radio documentaries for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and Swedish Broadcasting. From 1980 to 1986 he was a producer for the Enlgish and French-language networks of the CBC, notably for Le Point and the investigative programs 'the fifth estate' and 'Contrechamps'. Isacsson teaches at the Quebec Film School, L'INIS. He has taught audiovisual production at the University of Montreal, and the history of documentary film at Concordia. In the mid-eighties he taught video production in Zimbabwe and South Africa for Montreal-based Videéo Tiers Monde (Third World Video). He directed an instructional tape on video production which received the award for best audiovisual production from the Association for Audiovisual Teaching Techniques in 1991. He is a member and former co-chair of the Montreal chapter of the Canadian Independent Film Caucus - now DOC Canada; a member of the Association des Réalisateurs and Réalisatrices du Québec, and a former vice-president of the Observatoire du documentaire. Isacsson is the founding President of the Green Camera competition. He is the founder and moderator of the Lundis du documentaire, a series of screenings and discussions about the creative process in documentary with the Rencontres Internationales du Documentaire de Montréal. Since 2008, he has been writing a blog entitled 'Documentary field notes and flashpoints' which can be found at www.socialdoc.net/magnus.