Merit Jensen-Carr
President and Executive Producer
Merit Motion Pictures
Over the past 35 years, Merit Jensen-Carr has built her boutique company, Merit Motion Pictures into a production powerhouse with a reputation for excellence and putting people first.
Under Merit’s leadership,MMP has received dozens of international and Canadian awards including two Jackson Media Awards (the Emmy for Natural History), a prestigious LA Humanitas Award for films of humanitarian significance, the Manitoba Women’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award, and the inaugural Hot Docs Don Haig Award for Special Achievement in Producing.
In 2025, MMP completed production on Everest Dark, a theatrical documentary produced for CBC, Telefilm, CMF, Manitoba Film & Music and Rogers Documentary Fund, currently screening to sold out festival audiences worldwide and launching in cinemas in 2026; the Extraordinary Caterpillar, a 1hr documentary and impact film produced for TVO, CMF, and Manitoba Film & Music, directed by Jeff McKay; and Cub Camp, a 6x1hr natural history series for Love Nature and Blue Ant Media directed by Shereen Jerrett, and A Prairie Boy’s Winter, a short animated film directed by Oscar Award nominated animator, Cordell Barker.
Current productions include Athens: Origins of Democracy, a 90 min/ 2x1hr/1hr France/Canada treaty co-production with YUZU Productions for CBC, France TV, Cosmote TV, and PBS NOVA with support from CMF and Rogers Documentary Fund directed by Jeff Newman; and The Passion of Kurelek, a feature documentary funded by Telefilm, CDN and MB tax credits and private donations directed by Halya Kuchmij and John Paizs about the life of Ukrainian artist William Kurelek.
Other MMP production highlights are the mini-landmark and outreach project Great Lakes Untamed, a 3 x1hr natural history series for TVO, Smithsonian US, Terra Mater Factual Studios and ARTE on the wildlife living in Canada’s Great Lakes watershed; Call of the Forest: The Forgotten Wisdom of Trees, an environmental impact production directed by Jeff McKay that screened to sold out audiences in cinemas across Canada and the US and was nominated for a Canadian Screen Award for Best Science and Nature Film.
In 2021 MMP produced two international Earth Day productions: the Canadian Screen Award-nominated Kingdom of the Polar Bears - a 90min/2x1hr special for National Geographic Channels, CBC, France 3, and Terra Mater Factual Studios; and Reef Rescue, (winner of the 2020 Jackson Media Awards for Best Conservation Feature) for PBS NOVA, Vulcan, CBC and ARTE. Both films were Canada-France treaty co-productions with CAPA-Films A Cinq.
