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,” said journalist and filmmaker Francine Pelletier.

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.

A few weeks before he died at age 64, Simard put Productions Virage under bankruptcy protection.

‘It is an immense loss to the documentary community,’ observed Pelletier, ‘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.’