Yaara Bou Melhem
Yaara Bou Melhem is an Australian writer, director and producer at Illuminate Films specialising in social justice films that often tackle the most pressing issues of our time. Her debut feature, Unseen Skies (2021), interrogates the inner workings of surveillance and artificial intelligence and was produced with Participant (USA). She recently wrote, directed and co-produced The Whiteley Art Scandal (2023), a 2 x 1hr series about one of Australia’s biggest art fraud trials for the ABC. Her award-winning shorts range from following the creation of a secular democracy in war-torn Syria to profiling disinformation campaigner and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Maria Ressa. Yaara’s films have earned multiple accolades including two UN Media Peace Awards and five Walkley Awards.
Her latest film, Yurlu Country, is a collaboration with First Nations Elder Maitland Parker about his fight to heal his homelands in Western Australia - the largest contaminated site in the Southern Hemisphere. The film has won multiple awards, including the Edge of Impact award at Doc Edge, Best International Documentary Feature at Buffalo International Film Festival and the Walkley Documentary Award.