Award-winning actor Arsinée Khanjian is known for her work in film and on stage both as performer and creator. She starred in the widely successful romantic comedy SABAH, as well as playing Ani in Atom Egoyan’s critically-acclaimed ARARAT.  For this work she was honoured with the Genie Award for Best Actress in a Feature Film and was also awarded Best Actress by the Durban International Film Festival. Internationally, her screen-work includes films with Catherine Breillat, Olivier Assayas, the Taviani brothers, Fatih Akin and Michael Hanaeke.

As a filmmaker, Khanjian helped design and created the thematic concept of STONE TIME TOUCH by director Garinee Torossian. CALENDAR, which Khanjian starred in and co-produced, was the first foreign feature film ever shot in the newly independent country of Armenia.

Khanjian has an extensive theatre career in Canada and internationally. She wrote directed and performed in Auction of Souls, Performing Memory on the life and death of Aurora Mardiganian, a performance piece commissioned by the Maxim Gorki Theater in Berlin, as part of the centennial commemoration of the Armenian genocide, in 2015.

In addition to her acting credits, Khanjian, with a Master’s Degree in Political Science, has an extensive administrative background in the arts and governmental affairs.

Khanjian continues to be active as a volunteer for arts and community groups. She helped organize the multi-media exhibit and conference on artistic responses to genocide, Remains to Be Seen, in 2009. She was the co-Chair of the prestigious Canadian contemporary dance company, Dancemakers, from 2011 to 2016.

Awarded to people who have made a significant contribution to Canada, Khanjian received the Queen’s Golden Jubilee Medal.. Khanjian was presented with the 2005 Crystal Award for Creative Excellence by Women in Film and Television. In 2012, she was a member of the Jury at the Cannes Film Film Festival for Cinefondation and Short Films International, and in 2015, President of the Jury at the International Film Festival and Forum on Human Rights in Geneva.

She participated with lawyer and Turkish Human Rights activist Fethiye Cetin in a seminal series of historic and political conversations surrounding the Armenian Genocide for Civilitas.