Nelofer Pazira

Nelofer Pazira was born in 1973 in Hyderabad, India, where her Afghan father was then working with the World Health Organization. She grew up in Kabul, Afghanistan. She lived through ten years of Soviet occupation, before an extremely perilous escape to Pakistan with her family in 1989 at the age of 16. The following year the family immigrated to New Brunswick, Canada. In 2001 Nelofer established her own film company, Kandahar Films, and has directed a number of documentaries. She has been a jury member at a number of film festivals (including those of Locarno, Geneva, São Paulo, Edinburgh, and Montreal), and has worked for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) in CBC Television and CBC Radio. Nelofer holds a degree in Journalism and English Literature from Carleton University in Ottawa and a master's degree in Anthropology/Sociology and Religion from Concordia University in Montreal. She has also received an honorary doctorate of law from Carleton. Recently, she received an honorary doctorate of letters from Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, British Columbia. She is a frequent speaker at international conferences, as well as universities and colleges, including Carleton University and George Washington University, and was a keynote speaker at the Religion, Culture & Conflict symposium at Trinity Western University. Pazira defended Joseph Boyden's novel Three Day Road in Canada Reads 2006. In 2006, Nelofer's memoir, A Bed of Red Flowers: In Search of My Afghanistan, was named winner of the Drainie-Taylor Biography Prize. In 2009, Pazira married English journalist Robert Fisk, who died in 2020.

Nelofer founded a charity, the Dyana Afghan Women's Fund (found at www.dawf.ca), which is named after her childhood friend who took her own life during Taliban rule. It provides education and skills for women in Afghanistan. She has also assisted UNESCO as a goodwill ambassador in their cultural work inside Afghanistan. Nelofer is a past president of the influential freedom of expression movement PEN Canada. In 2009, she accompanied the Governor General of Canada Michaëlle Jean as a cultural delegate in state visits to Slovenia, Croatia and, Greece.

• Kandahar (2001) • Return to Kandahar (2003) • The Giant Buddhas (2005) • Audition (2008) • Act of Dishonour (2010) • This is Not a Movie (2019)

Nelofer Pazira is recorded as having received Drainie-Taylor Biography Prize.