Catherine Martin was born in Quebec. She completed college studies in visual arts and went on to pursue fine arts at Concordia University in Montreal, where she studied film and photography. Catherine Martin writes and directs all of her films. She independently produced her short films, including Nuits d’Afrique (1990) and Les fins de semaine (1995). In 1998, she directed her first documentary, Les dames du 9e, followed in 2001 by her first feature-length fiction film, Mariages. She subsequently directed Océan (2002), Dans les villes (2006), L’esprit des lieux (2006), Trois temps après la mort d’Anna (2010), and Une jeune fille (2013). Her films have been presented at numerous international festivals (Berlin, Toronto, Oberhausen, Nyon, Buenos Aires, Shanghai, Karlovy Vary, etc.) and have won awards in Quebec and Canada as well as internationally. Three of her films—Mariages, Océan, and Trois temps après la mort d’Anna—were named among Canada’s Top Ten films of the year at TIFF.