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Nelofer Pazira was born in India and grew up in Kabul, Afghanistan during the Russian occupation. The Paziras fled in 1989, when Nelofer was sixteen. After living as refugees in Pakistan for a year, the family immigrated to Canada. She obtained a degree in Journalism and English Literature from Carleton University in Ottawa, and completed her master’s at Concordia University, Montreal. She received an honorary doctorate of laws, honoris causa, from Carleton University in 2006.
In 2001, she stared in Mohsen Makhmalbaf’s Kandahar, which was based on her life story. She was awarded the “Prix d’ interpretation” by the New Cinema, New Media -- Montreal Film Festival for her role in the movie. In 2002, she co-directed the feature-length documentary film Return to Kandahar, winner of 2003 Gemini. She also appeared in The Giant Buddhas – a film about the destruction of monumental Buddha statues in Bamiyan. In 2008 she directed and produced Audition, an experimental film about images and their impact in Afghanistan. Recently she has written and directed Act of Dishonour, a drama about honor killing and the plight of returning Afghans in post-Taliban Afghanistan.
A Bed of Red Flowers: In Search of My Afghanistan, her first book, was awarded the Drainie-Taylor Biography Prize by Writers Trust of Canada (2006). As a journalist, she has worked for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. She has written for Sight & Sound (the British Film Institute Magazine), The Ottawa Citizen, Toronto Star, The Independent (UK), Panorama (Italy), and El Semanal (Spain).
Since 2006, she has served as the president of PEN Canada, which works on behalf of writers who have been forced into silence for writing the truth as they see it. In addition, she has set up a charity -- “Dyana Afghan Women’s Fund”, in memory of her friend – to provide education and skills training for women in Afghanistan. This event is free and open to the public.
