Noura Kevorkian is an award-winning Canadian documentary filmmaker (writer, director, editor, and cinematographer) best known for her 2022 film Batata , [1] which was the recipient of a 2023 Peabody Award [2] and was submitted for consideration to the 2024 Oscars in the Documentary Feature Category. [3]
Noura Kevorkian is a Canadian filmmaker of Lebanese, Armenian, and Syrian descent. Kevorkian was born in Aleppo, Syria and raised in Lebanon until her emigration to Canada in her teens. [4] Kevorkian's upbringing has resulted in her being multi-lingual (Armenian, Arabic, English) and multi-cultural.
Kevorkian's father, Barkev Kevorkian, was the son of refugees, born in the Karantina refugee camp outside Beirut, Lebanon. [5] Born to parents who were survivors of the Armenian genocide (1915-1923), Barkev took an interest in engineering and science books. He became a successful machine maker with his own foundry in the Bekaa Valley and supplied machine parts to various factories in Beirut during the Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990). [5]
Kevorkian's childhood was infused with the stories of her family, her relatives, and the countless elders of Anjar. She has personal experience of war violence and trauma, having lived through the Lebanese Civil War. This inter-generational trauma has been well-established by medical/sociological research, and several critics have acknowledged how it has informed her sense of identity, cultural pride, humanitarianism, and documentary storytelling/filmmaking. [4]
In her late teen years, Kevorkian went into self-exile and sought a new life in Canada as an immigrant to escape this violence. She graduated from the University of Toronto with a Bachelor of Commerce (B.Com.) in economics and finance, with minor studies in Middle East history and cinema studies. Kevorkian continued her filmmaking journey with training at the National Film Board of Canada (NFB), the Summer Institute of Film and Television (SIFT), [6] the Canadian Film Centre, Directors Guild of Canada, and other industry courses, programs and education.
Noura Kevorkian produces many of her films under her company Saaren Films. [7]
Kevorkian's first short film, Veils Uncovered (2002), premiered at the International Documentary Film Festival in Amsterdam, Netherlands. [8] Veils Uncovered interviews women from Damascus, Syria, about their relationship to sexuality and staying appealing to their husbands beneath their veils. [8]
She is credited with composing and singing two of the a cappella Arabic songs included in the film. [8] Kevorkian has also contributed to a published written work. Following this short film, Kevorkian contributed a journal entry to a book of a similar subject entitled The Secret Life of Syrian Lingerie by Malu Halasa, and the contents of this entry include experiences had during her time in Syria when making the film. [9] The Kunsthal Museum in Rotterdam, Netherlands, has exhibited both Kevorkian's written content and her short film. [5]
Dreams of Education (2003) [10] is a short documentary about the aspirations of high school students. As the writer and director of the film, Kevorkian explores young people and their anxieties about the cost of higher education.
She directed her second documentary, Anjar: Flowers, Goats and Heroes (2009), [11] which was acknowledged by critics as highlighting a history of intergenerational transmission of memory through oral history. [12] This film was also the first of several of her films to be backed in part by Six Island Productions. [11]
Anjar: Flowers, Goats and Heroes documents life in a small Armenian village. Kevorkian makes connections between this village and a group of 1915 genocide survivors, as well as to the Lebanese Civil War under which she grew up. [11]
Kevorkian also directed, edited, and produced the documentary film 23 Kilometres (2015), [13] which screened at the Karlovy Vary International Festival in the Czech Republic as her debut feature. [14]
23 Kilometres (2015) is Kevorkian's most personal documentary as it shines the spotlight on her father, Barkev Kevorkian, in the midst of his Parkinson's disease. [14] The film focuses on Barkev's physical struggles along with his love for cosmology.
Batata (2022) is a feature documentary (125 min) covering 10 years in the life of a Syrian woman named Maria and her family of potato farmers who find themselves stuck in Lebanon as stateless refugees during the Syrian refugee crisis. [1] Maria's father forms an unlikely friendship with an Armenian-Lebanese farmer named Mousa. [15] The year of its release, Batata was highlighted in an interview by the United Nations High Committee for Refugees through its partner program "Diaspora" during its screening at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival, with the goal of giving a platform to immigrant and refugee voices. [16]
Her upcoming film Taste of Longing, is one among several Ontario productions selected to receive a shared funding of five million dollars from Telefilm Canada's Theatrical Documentary Program. [17] Taste of Longing is alleged to focus on Canadian trailblazer Ethel Mulvany, inspired the book written about her by Suzanne Evans. [18]
| Noura Kevorkian Filmography | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Film Name | Year of Release | Role in Production | |
| 1. | Veils Uncovered [8] | 2002 | Director, Producer, Editor, Screenplay, Narrator, Composer, Singer |
| Dreams of Education [10] | 2003 | Writer, Director | |
| 2. | Anjar: Flowers, Goats and Heroes [11] | 2009 | Director, Producer |
| 3. | 23 Kilometres [13] | 2015 | Director, Producer, Editor, Narrator |
| 4. | Batata [1] | 2022 | Director, Producer, Editor, Cinematography |
Noura Kevorkian has also served as a juror for the Best Canadian Documentary Award at the Lunenberg Film Festival in Nova Scotia, Canada. [37]