Ali Kazimi

Professor Ali Kazimi is filmmaker, writer, and visual artist whose work deals with race, social justice, migration, history, memory, archive especially in the context of disaporic South Asian history and South Asian allyship His critically acclaimed films have been shown at festivals around the world, winning national and international honours and awards. Kazimi is a full Professor in the Department of Cinema & Media Arts, where he has also served as the Chair of the Department.

In 2019 he was awarded a Governor General's Award for Visual and Media Arts for lifetime achievement, received a DLitt (h.c.) from the University of British Columbia, as well as a Research Leader Award from York University. In 2023 he was elected as Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.

His film Beyond Extinction: Sinixt Resurgence documents the decades long struggle of the Sinixt for recognition, after their extinction by legislation in 1956. The traces Indigenous matriarchs who revive traditions and fight to save an ancient burial ground in BC’ Slocan Valley. Declared “extinct” by the Indian Act, the film documents their intimate living histories and their decades long struggle for recognition. In 2022, the film was shown as part of the Front Light, a key program in the prestigious International Film Festival of Amsterdam. It received the Audience Award at Planet In Focus Canadian Environmental Film Festival.

Highlights of his international critical acclaim include the Donald Brittain/Gemini Award for Best Social/Political Documentary; Golden Gate Award, San Fran. Intl. Film Fest; Golden Conch, Mumbai International Film Festival; Best Director & Best Political Documentary, Hot Docs and audience awards for Best Documentary at the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival and Los Angeles Indian Film Festival. His most recent feature documentary Random Acts of Legacy premiered at Hot Docs Canadian International Film Festival in 2017 where it won a Special Mention for Best Canadian Feature Documentary, and it also won the Special Jury award at the San Diego Asian American Film Festival. In 2018 it was broadcast on PBS' World Channel in the US and on TV Ontario in Canada.

Kazimi is the recipient of a prestigious John R. Evans Leaders Fund, from the Canada Foundation for Innovation to set up the Stereoscopic 3D Lab @York. He was the founding filmmaker, in 3DFLIC (3D Film Innovation Consortium) an inter-disciplinary academic/industry partnership (2009-12).

In 2012, Kazimi authored the nationally acclaimed book, Undesirables: White Canada and the Komagata Maru – An Illustrated History (Douglas & McIntyre).

He is currently working on two projects about colonial India.