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Yazmeen Kanji is a short-format, documentary, and narrative film director who transforms overlooked stories into unforgettable cinema—films that grip audiences on every emotional level while illuminating human experiences too often left unseen.
Her earliest muses were her younger siblings, willing actors for the hand-me-down camera she carried everywhere as a child. That instinct to observe, capture, and elevate the people closest to her never left. Since her student days as a Dean’s Scholar graduate at the University of Toronto, Yazmeen has carved her way through the film industry as a director and in a myriad of roles. She began as assistant to the late Charles Officer before making her mark with the award-winning short documentary From Syria To Hope (2019). Through riveting stories of resilience and empowerment, she developed a directing style that holds audiences in its gaze—demanding attention and leaving hearts shifted long after the credits.
She went on to direct the award-winning short documentary With Love From Munera (2020) through the Inside Out Short Film Lab, and was soon admitted to the Hot Docs Fellowship, one of the world’s foremost institutions for documentary filmmaking. Hot Docs awarded Yazmeen the CrossCurrents grant to develop a documentary about sickle cell disease and racism in healthcare, which she co-produced and also directed on for CBC’s The Passionate Eye.
Pivoting from documentary into narrative and short-format, Yazmeen wrote and directed One Day (2024), the first Indo-Caribbean Muslim story to feature a young woman in hijab. The groundbreaking film, infused with heart, humour, and inspiration for young women everywhere, had a successful international festival run—landing Yazmeen and her lead actress, Rebecca Ablack (Netflix’s Ginny and Georgia), on etalk television. Expanding into branded work, she interned at Fela in 2025 while simultaneously directing her first commercials.
Alongside telling stories that matter across documentary, narrative, and commercial productions, Yazmeen served as Advocacy Lead at BIPOC TV & Film, where she spearheaded initiatives to support systemic change, including Bill C-11 consultations for racialized creators across Canada. She was also a selected member of Inspirit Foundation’s inaugural Narrative Change Lab, developing a framework for Muslim creatives nationwide. As founder of Films With A Cause, Yazmeen led her team in creating space for dialogue through events and conferences, partnering with TIFF’s Community Impact team and receiving an Inspirit Foundation grant to research and write the Back to Ones guide. The guide—highlighting the economic and cultural importance of specificity consulting in productions—launched on the main stage at the Canadian Media Producers Association’s Prime Time conference.
Integrating her expertise in inclusion practices and cultural specificity—which elevates audience reception of every project—with her instinctive eye for visual storytelling, Yazmeen directs with impact and precision. No one leaves a project she helms unchanged.
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