Noura Kevorkian

Noura Kevorkian is a Canadian documentary filmmaker best known for her 2022 film Batata, which was the recipient of a 2023 Peabody Award and was submitted for consideration to the 2024 Oscars in the Documentary Feature Category.

Early life and education Noura Kevorkian was born in Aleppo, Syria and raised in Lebanon until her emigration to Canada in her teens. 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. Born to parents who were survivors of the Armenian genocide (1915-1923), Barkev took an interest in engineering and science books. He became a 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).

Career Kevorkian produces many of her films under her company Saaren Films.

Kevorkian's first short film, Veils Uncovered (2002), premiered at the International Documentary Film Festival in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Veils Uncovered interviews women from Damascus, Syria, about their relationship to sexuality and staying appealing to their husbands beneath their veils. The Kunsthal Museum in Rotterdam, Netherlands, has exhibited both Kevorkian's written content and her short film. 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), which was acknowledged by critics as highlighting a history of intergenerational transmission of memory through oral history. This film was also the first of several of her films to be backed in part by Six Island Productions. which screened at the Karlovy Vary International Festival in the Czech Republic as her debut feature. 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. 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.

Filmography + Noura Kevorkian Filmography Name Year Role Veils Uncovered and Yorkton Film Festival.

Kevorkian has also served as a juror for the Best Canadian Documentary Award at the Lunenberg Film Festival in Nova Scotia, Canada.