BIO

Ric Esther Bienstock is an acclaimed Emmy Award-winning Canadian filmmaker best known for her investigative documentaries. From sex trafficking to the human organ trade, from corruption in the world of Boxing to Ebola, Bienstock’s hallmark is gaining unprecedented access to major international stories. Her films have screened at over 80 international festivals and have aired on networks around the globe.

In 2020 Bienstock was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada for “her commitment to raising awareness of global events and conflicts through film”.  This is Canada’s highest civilian honour.  In February 2015, she was awarded the Gordon Sinclair Award for Broadcast Journalism. This Award is presented to a Broadcast Journalist for an exceptional body of work and a significant contribution to the international profile of Canadian television journalism.  Bienstock is the ONLY female independent producer to ever receive this award. 

 In 2014, Bienstock was selected by a jury of journalists specializing in the arts, culture and entertainment to be honoured at the Toronto International Film Festival with the Birks Diamond Tribute to the Year’s Women in Film as one of Canada’s leading women filmmakers. 

Bienstock most recently completed producing, executive producing and directing a 6-part documentary series entitled Enslaved: The Lost History of the Transatlantic Slave Trade featuring and executive produced by  actor and human rights activist Samuel L. Jackson. The series won the inaugural Buzzie Award for Best History Program from the World Congress of Science and Factual Producers.  The series was nominated for 2 NAACP awards and garnered 3 Canadian Screen Awards.

Bienstock produced the critically acclaimed The Accountant of Auschwitz, which premiered at Hot Docs Film Festival in 2018 and was voted #1 Audience Favourite in its program section and #2 Audience Favourite overall.  It was released theatrically across Canada to rave reviews and record-breaking box-office numbers.  The film was chosen by Telefilm to be part of a select group of films screening across the US and UK under the “Canada Now” banner. 

 In 2018, she produced and co-directed The Good Nazi, a film that tells the story of a Schindler-type Nazi officer who turned his back on his dark ideology and risked his life to save hundreds of Jews.

Her most feature length documentary, Tales From the Organ Trade, tackles the international black market trade in human organs. Narrated by David Cronenberg, the film was produced for HBO in the U.S. and Shaw Media and Canal D in Canada. The film screened at over 40 festivals and garnered 14 awards including the prestigious Edward R. Murrow Award, the Scripps Howard Award for International Coverage of a story, the Norman Bethune Award for international Health Reporting from the Canadian Medical Association, 4 Canadian Screen Awards including the Donald Brittain Award for Best Social/Political Film, the Canadian Association of Journalists Broadcast Feature Award and 2 Amnesty International Awards. Bienstock also received 2 Emmy Award nominations – for Outstanding Investigative Journalism and Outstanding Writing.

She has produced, written and directed a diverse range of acclaimed films including Sex Slaves (aka The Real Sex Traffic) in which Bienstock went under-cover to produce an expose into the trafficking of women from the former Soviet bloc into the global sex trade. Other films include the 3-part series Penn & Teller’s Magic and Mystery Tour, which takes the Vegas magician-comedians on a wild and unpredictable adventure to Egypt, India and China, The Money Shot (from the Series “The Sexual Century) a revealing romp through the hard-core pornography industry and how it is penetrating mainstream culture. She also produced and directed an unprecedented behind the scenes look inside the world of professional boxing with Boxing: In and Out of the Ring, the highly acclaimed Ebola: Inside an Outbreak (aka The Plague Fighters) a thorough ground-zero investigation of an Ebola outbreak in Zaire for which she was honored with a Dupont-Columbia Award for Excellence in Broadcast Journalism and Ms. Conceptions, an entertaining look at single mothers by choice and the sperm industry which screened at the Museum of Modern Art in New York as part of a film series.

Bienstock also produced numerous one hour documentaries and series including The Age of Anxiety (CBC), Faces of the Bible(National Geographic U.S. & International, VisionTV), Impact of Terror (CNN, CBC), Finding Atlantis (National Geographic U.S. & International, Discovery Canada), Beasts of the Bible (Animal Planet U.S., VisionTV), Science of the Soul (History U.S. and VisionTV), The Lost Tomb of Jesus (Discovery U.S., Channel 4, VisionTV) and Deadly Currents (BBC, Discovery Channel, CBC) among others. She also served as location director for the Emmy-winning The Plague Monkeys (A&E, Channel 4, CBC).

Her work has garnered numerous awards including a U.S. Emmy for Outstanding Investigative Journalism, two Edward R. Murrow Awards, a Dupont-Columbia University Award for Excellence in Broadcast Journalism, a British Broadcast Award for Best Documentary, a Royal Television Society Award, a nomination for a British Academy Award (BAFTA), two HOT DOCS Awards, twoGemini Awards, a Genie, a Cable Ace Award, two Gold Hugos from the Chicago Film Festival, two Cine Golden Eagles, a Distinguished Documentary Achievement Award from the IDA in Los Angeles, a Gracie Award for Outstanding Documentary, 3 Gold World Medals from the New York Festivals, the Grand Prix at the Nyon International Film Festival in Switzerland and two Overseas Press Club of America Awards for her investigative documentaries.

She speaks three languages, none of which her children listen to.