Paul Ballerini

Paul Ballerini is an emerging award-winning filmmaker from Montréal, Québec, who is interested in the blurred line between fact and fiction, memory and storytelling. 

Experimenting with reenactment, repetition, interviews and soundscapes, he glides between themes of family, obligation, re-examination of the past and the unreliability of perception. His work spans the spectrum of documentary and narrative filmmaking, and his films have been screened on the festival circuit as well as broadcast on television. 

He holds a Film Production BFA from Concordia University’s Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema, where his graduating film, Forgotten Man (2016), won the Susan Schouten Documentary Film Award. His films include Cotten (2015), which was selected at the Rendez-Vous du Cinéma Québécois (RVCQ), as well as Nothing Special (2019), which premiered at the 14th annual Cinema On The Bayou festival, in Louisiana and won the Best First-Time Filmmaker at the Canada International Film Festival. 

He is currently an MFA candidate in Film Production at Concordia University, where he entered with a full scholarship. His present research-creation project, Home as Alone, is funded and supported by the Fonds de recherche du Québec and explores the world of caregiving for first and second generation immigrants through a docu-fiction about his mother and grandmother. He has also worked on multiple FRQ funded projects such as Deux temps-trois mouvements and Cafe Lab. He is an active member of Fabrique Mondes and an Affiliate of the Center for Oral History and Digital Storytelling. He has also worked in creative consulting for venues and technical consulting for most Montreal film festivals.