About Us

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.