Yolanda Papini-Pollock

Yolanda Papini-Pollock's journey from educator (for 20 years), to the driving force behind Operation Ezra that raised awareness of the Yazidi genocide and helped bring survivors to Canada, to human rights filmmaker (for nine years) has been motivated by a deep concern for the suffering of the persecuted. A child of a Holocaust survivor and a refugee fleeing persecution and expulsion from an Arab land, Papini-Pollock grew up in a community of refugees in Israel amidst ongoing wars, conflict, and terrorism, and so was sensitized early to human suffering. Papini-Pollock's work is thus instilled with the profound understanding that "human suffering anywhere concerns men and women everywhere" (Elie Wiesel). Her films remind us that the end of the Holocaust, which she believes was both a distinctly Jewish catastrophe and a global failure of humanity, did not bring an end to hatred, persecution, or suffering; its promise of "never again" remains unfulfilled. She documents the horrific reality of genocide and persecution, past and present. Through the powerful and painful stories of survivors of the Holocaust, the Rwandan and Yazidi genocides, the residential school system in Canada, and of the Chinese Communist Party's persecution of the Falun Gong, Papini-Pollock seeks to inform and empower her audience to act for a better future, to repair the rupture of humanity's failure. Papini-Pollock began her film career in 2012, producing biographical films for people who wanted to preserve their family history, legacies, and stories for future generations. As the Executive Director of Never Again Productions Inc. and Infilm Productions Inc., Papini-Pollock has written and produced documentaries, which were broadcast on Canadian TV and which are popular with victims of human rights violations, human rights groups and educators in Canadian high schools. Never Again: A Broken Promise is a compelling documentary that draws parallels between four major genocides: the Holocaust, the Yazidi genocide, the Rwandan genocide, and the cultural genocide of the Canadian residential school system. Get Over It: A Path to Healing exposes the health crisis facing the Indigenous community in Canada through the stories of three Indigenous women who are survivors of the residential school system. Painful Truth: The Falun Gong Genocide unveils the pain, trauma, and loss that resulted from the persecution and organ harvesting directed at Falun Gong practitioners in China. # FixIt: Tikkun Olam (Repair the World) is an educational/advocacy documentary that follows Holocaust survivor Isaac Gotfried as he shares his story of trauma and loss with a class of Winnipeg students. The film records the students' reactions to Gotfried's message of hope, showing how he inspired them to respond to the injustice, prejudice, and hatred they encounter in the world with acts of loving kindness, and so to repair the world. Unusual in Every Way is the surprising story of the unique friendship between an Indigenous man with disabilities and a renowned professor from Israel, and of the inspiration and hope the Indigenous man drew from the example of Israel's post traumatic growth as a way to heal his community.