MONTREAL — Documentary filmmakers are in shock after the suicide of Marcel Simard, founder of Les Productions Virage and one of the most respected producers of social issue docs in Quebec.

”When I first started to make documentary films I was told there were two producers in Montreal who were good to work with. Marcel was one of them,” journalist and filmmaker Francine Pelletier tells Playback Daily.

Simard’s company produced Pelletier’s 2008 film about Cinar cofounder Micheline Charest, La femme qui ne se voyait plus aller, although the two first met in 1978; Pelletier is the godmother of one of Simard’s daughters from his first marriage. ”He was the father of a wonderful daughter,” the journalist says, adding that Simard, who died last week, was an extremely sensitive man. ”He was very, very emotional and passionate. When he focused on a project, it was something to witness, he was very intense.”

A few weeks before he died at age 64, Simard put Productions Virage under bankruptcy protection. ‘I think he had a hard time in the last few years. He was a very compassionate and empathic person. He probably felt that he was letting a whole lot of people down,’ says Pelletier.

‘It is an immense loss to the documentary community, which is already struggling. Virage was important to many people. The kind of films he made are increasingly rare. We have lost a role model and an important player in documentary film.’

Last year, Simard founded a new company, Spectra Virage Media, with help from l’Équipe Spectra, which runs a number of major entertainment events in Quebec, including the annual Montreal International Jazz Festival.

Born in Montreal in 1945, Simard trained as a sociologist and worked for a number of years as a researcher at Radio-Quebec. He was married to the Monique Simard, head of the French program at the National Film Board.

A few weeks ago, Simard told Montreal’s French-language daily Le Devoir he was concerned about the future of documentary film: ”Film budgets are going to get smaller and smaller with federal cutbacks. The future of the genre is at risk,’ he said.