Tamar Baruch is a filmmaker born in 1987 in Haifa, Israel. As a first-generation immigrant Arab-Jew from a Tunisian and Iranian family, she directs her films toward critical human rights issues, with a particular focus on refugee narratives. Baruch earned a master’s degree in Documentary Film from NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute, where she was a Fulbright fellow, and a bachelor’s degree in Film from Tel Aviv University’s Steve Tisch School of Film and Television and York University’s Film Department in Toronto.
Her films, including "Gloria" (2013), "Power of Attorney" (2014), "Stranger of the Dunes" (2017), and "Her Name Was Zehava" (2024), have been screened at film festivals worldwide, winning the Best Documentary Short Film Award at the Haifa International Film Festival, the Amazon Most Promising Director Prize at the Montreal World Film Festival, First Prize at the Jerusalem Film Festival, and First Prize at Nòt Film Festival Italy, among others. She has also been nominated for an Israeli Academy Award (Ophir) and is a laureate of the Israeli Ministry of Culture’s Early Career Film Award. Her work has also been showcased at Le Muséum de Toulouse in France. Baruch has received fellowships from MacDowell, Yaddo, VCCA, and Bogliasco.
During her time at MacDowell in 2023, Tamar worked on her documentary film "Her Name Was Zehava" (2024), a project in collaboration with Zehava, a Palestinian trans woman from the West Bank. Zehava fled to Israel after surviving sex trafficking and an attempted murder but was denied asylum and repeatedly imprisoned due to her "second-class" status as a Palestinian.
