Lia Tarachansky

Born in the former Soviet Union in 1984, Tarachansky moved with her family to Israel, and later to an Israeli settlement in the occupied Palestinian West Bank. In 2000 the family moved again, to Canada, where Tarachansky studied Biomedical Science, later becoming a political journalist and filmmaker. Tarachansky is a Toronto-based filmmaker and the Israel/Palestine correspondent for The Real News Network (TRNN) where she produces short, documentary-style reports exploring the context behind the news. Tarachansky's work is frequently featured in publications such as +972 Magazine, Mondoweiss, USA Today, Al Jazeera, and the Huffington Post. Her journalism was profiled in the renown Max Blumenthal book, Goliath. In 2012 Tarachansky produced and co-directed with British journalist Phil Caller a BBC-World documentary about Israel's Social Justice (J14) movement and the wave of self-immolation's it sparked, in protest of the harsh economic reality many face in Israel. In 2013 Tarachansky completed work on an independent feature documentary, On The Side Of The Road, a Naretiv Productions film. The film is an exploration of the power of denial. It questions what Israelis learn, know, and sometimes choose not to know about the 1948 war. That fateful year led to the birth of the state of Israel and displacement of two-thirds of the Palestinian people. The film is had a wide theatrical and worldwide release in 2014 and 2015. In 2015 she co-directed Ethnocracy: Israel's African Refugees with Canadian journalist Jesse Freeston for the largest Spanish-language TV, TeleSUR. The film exposes Israel's policies towards African refugees, attempting to seek asylum in the Jewish state. In 2017 Tarachansky released Ocean, a short film about her experience walking through the streets of Toronto, her new home, while carrying the sounds of the 2014 war in Israel/Palestine, which she covered as a journalist. The film is shot on her iPhone and includes original music composed by French composer Yann Delmas. It won the Best Short Short at the Toronto Short Film Festival. Tarachansky speaks Russian, Hebrew, English, basic Arabic and French.