Leslie Norville

Leslie Norville is an Emmy Award–winning producer and accomplished showrunner with a passion for bringing nuanced, character-driven stories to life that centre the experiences of women and people of color. Her work has been showcased at prestigious festivals worldwide, including TIFF, SXSW, Tribeca, Hot Docs, DOC NYC, and IDFA and has aired on major platforms such as Disney+, PBS, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation(CBC), Sundance Channel, and VH1.

Her recent projects include the Oscar-shortlisted, multi-award-winning "The First Wave" (Neon/National Geographic); the eight-part CBC series "BlackLife: Untold Stories", which won a Canadian Screen Award for Best Editing; and "True North", directed by Michèle Stephenson (Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project), an archival film about the Black Liberation movement in 1960s Montreal. "True North" had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival and won Best Editing, Best Cinematography,and Best Sound Design at the inaugural Hindsight Film Festival.

Norville is an alumna of the Sundance Documentary Creative Producing Fellowship. In 2023, Playback magazine named her Showrunner of the Year; in 2024, she received the Dear Producer Award; and in 2025, she was a Gotham Cannes Producing Fellow. She is also a member of the DocumentaryProducers Alliance and the Directors Guild of America, and has served on awards juries, including the Gotham Awards (Best Documentary category) and the Pare Lorentz Award.

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ABOUT TRUE NORTH

Exploring a dynamic and untold history of Black resistance and student organizing, this documentary examines two pivotal events that shook 1960s Montreal, leaving an impact and lessons that continue to resonate today. Told exclusively through the eyes of the students and young people who lived through these events, their story reframes Canada’s role in the global Black liberation movement and highlights how ideas and political discourse cannot be contained by borders.