Biography
Foto: Ammara
Ammara Khalid
Ammara Khalid, M.Phil. Scholar in Communication Studies from University of Punjab, Lahore is teaching in Cultural Studies Department at National College of Arts, Lahore. She is a freelance researcher, content writer, documentary maker, RJ in local radio station and a member of Awami Art Collective, which is a Lahore based collective group of artists, scholars and activists working with local communities and highlight their social, political and cultural issues.
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Asef Ali Mohammad
Asef Ali Mohammad belongs to the Hazara community. He undertook BA/MA Photography and Film degree from Middlesex University, London. He is currently based in Quetta where most his work revolves around social and educational issues. Asef’s work has been published in the BBC, Newsweek, the Guardian, Dawn, Express Tribune, Al Jazeera’s the Stream, The Sundaytimes, New Internationalists Magazine and Foto8. His photographs have been exhibited at Impressions Gallery Bradford, Winchester Gallery, Somerset House London as well as at V.M Gallery, Karachi, Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum, Bombay and Siddhartha Hall, Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan, New Delhi. In 2012, Asef won the Sony World Photography Student Focus Award.
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Tamana Ayazi
Tamana Ayazi is a filmmaker from Afghanistan who advocates freedom of thought and human rights through filmmaking, photography, and writing. She got her bachelor's degree in business administration from the American University of Afghanistan. She started filmmaking in 2012 when she was part of Citizen Journalism and Filmmaking program in Kabul Afghanistan called ‘Afghan Voices’. Her main focus is on women, children, and education, war and discrimination issues. She wants to document positives beside negatives in Afghanistan and would like to explore other cultures to learn real stories.
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Zulfiqar Ali Qureshi
Zulfiqar Ali Qureshi is a candidate towards PhD in International Relations at University of Karachi, with interests in Political Science and Contemporary History of Pakistan. A practicing lawyer, based in Karachi working on the issues of human rights and women rights. He has extensively written and contributed on the social issues, sexism and human rights at DAWN.COM. For the social contribution he has worked with various NGO’s including Tehrik-e-Niswan Pakistan and Ms. Sheema Kirmani with research support on plays on social issues targeting underprivileged people of Pakistan. Zulfiqar’s keen interests in research include urban development in Karachi and he is avid reader of anthropology and world history.
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Meher Jaffri
Meher Jaffri is a filmmaker (director/producer), actor and Fulbright Scholar. She founded her production company, ‘Bodhicitta Works’ in 2011 and has gone on to make the multiple award winning independent Pakistani feature film, ‘Lamha’ (English Title: Seedlings) and numerous shorts such as The Waves and Ruckus that received critical acclaim at TED Global and international film festivals. Her most recent credit under her production company is the Belgian-Pakistani co-production ‘NOCES’ (English Title: A Wedding) that premiered at the 2016 Toronto Film Festival. She has worked on features, shorts, documentaries and music videos, most recently having directed ‘Ishq Kinara’ featuring musician Zoe Viccaji. She has been the recipient of many prestigious programs such as the Women in Leadership Fellowship (International House), the Davis Peace Project and Fulbright Scholarship amongst others.
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Khurram Nawaz Nawaz
Khurram Nawaz Sheikh is currently studying in the final year student of M.S Film and Television at Beaconhouse National University. He has further attended filmmaking and theatre workshops in U.S and India. Moreover, he has been working as well alongside in the field of performing arts and filmmaking since 2013. His primary areas of specialization in filmmaking are direction, screenwriting and performance. Khurram’s main goals and motivations for this workshop are to explore more of the neighboring cultures that influence the culture of Pakistan itself and then to portray them through the lens of a camera.
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Shehroze Yousuf Khan
Shehroze Yusuf Khan is an architect based in Islamabad. He studied architecture at the National College of Arts and proceeded to work in the biggest architectural practice in Islamabad, handling their residential projects. In 2015, he won a competition to design a monument for the lost children of the Army Public School Peshawar. Being awarded by the Prime minister of Pakistan at the completion of the project, motivated him to establish his own architectural practice, ‘YK Studio Architecture’, in 2016. YKSA has undertaken multiple projects in Islamabad, including residential, commercial and is also responsible for Islamabad’s newest landmark, the floral clock on margalla road. In his free time, Shehroze takes keen interest in photography, gardening and playing cricket. His interest in digital marketing and the growing clientele of YKSA led him to establish a digital marketing company, Synthesis Pvt. Ltd., in 2017. Synthesis aims to provide a one stop solution to the real estate sector of the country.
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Ali Atif
Ali Atif is a film student and photographer who belongs to the Hunza valley in the northern areas of Pakistan. He moved to Florida, USA with his family at a very young age but was still strong to his roots. After graduating high school, he decided to move back to Pakistan. He developed an interest for photography and filmmaking as he extensively traveled the northern areas. To pursue his ambition to become a filmmaker he enrolled in the National College of Arts in Lahore, to broaden his knowledge of filmmaking. In 2017 he graduated NCA and is currently focused on making films concerning overlooked topics which exist in his native country. His fondness for the outdoors has driven him towards mountain climbing and trekking in the Karakoram, Hindu Kush and Pamir mountain ranges.
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Samid Ali
Samid Ali is a Pakistani born Visual Artist. He completed his Bachelor in Fine Arts Photography (Passed with Distinction) from Beaconhouse National University. Throughout his studies, Samid Ali has been part of several Group Shows in his home country including My World in Monochrome 2016, The Year Book 2015 and 2nd National Photographic Art Exhibition in 2013 at the Alhamra Art Gallery Lahore Pakistan. He was Pioneer Chief Product Photographer at Outfitters dept. of E-Commerce from 2015 to 2016. Been associated with Lahore Museum (Inheriting Harappa), where he documented Museum Artifacts and made video documentary on Harappa in 2015. There are several photographic publications which majorly include The Friday Times Newspaper in 2012, HELLO Pakistan 2017 and his collaboration with the renowned artist Rashid Rana, photography published on various websites like artnews.com etc. Samid Ali is currently working at BEECHTREE as Creative Photographer in Lahore, Pakistan.
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Maryam Altaf
Maryam Altaf graduated as an Architect in 2012 from the School of Architecture at Beaconhouse National University in Lahore, Pakistan. She is a LEED Accredited Professional, previously worked with the Pakistan Green Building Council, with particular attention on sustainable architecture projects around Pakistan. She shows keen interest in the field of photography and various other forms or multi-media, with focus on ethnographic studies. As a documentarian, she is currently working on a few projects with emphasis on social and economic communities that are by and large ignored by our mainstream media.
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Nida Mehboob
Nida Mehboob is a portrait photographer based in Lahore with an experience of 5 years in commercial photography in Pakistan. She had a passion for photography since her early years. Although her educational background is from the field of Pharmacy, she found her profession in creating images. Starting off from wedding portraits in 2011 she is now a full time portrait/wedding photographer. She has a passion for black and white portraits which is quite evident in her portraiture work. Occasionally she also works as a documentary photographer for her personal projects with photographers like Asim Rafiqui and Aun Raza as her mentors.
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Sheherazad Siddiqui
Sheherazad Siddiqui is a filmmaking student at Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture in Karachi. She started out as a young feminist artist, worked with Artciti and exhibited at the Mohatta Palace Museum alongside various local artists. She soon found her passion in filmmaking and is now branching out into the industry, hoping to raise awareness about various social issues that plague the society, such as awareness about mental health issues and women’s rights. In her spare time she loves to watch and learn from movies that have left their mark in the world of filmmaking. She is a huge fan of Wes Anderson and Alfred Hitchcock and her annoying cat who is completely unrelated to filmmaking in any way.
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Sadeq Naseri
Sadeq Naseri was born in 1980 in Bamyan, Afghanistan, but due to heavy civil war his family was forced to leave Afghanistan for long time. Naseri returned to Afghanistan as soon as international community stopped the on-going civil war. He had his first job experience in a public media during Afghanistan’s first presidential election and soon he started working with different media agencies. He stablished Afghan photography network which is a new training center for those who like documentary photography by support of Danish Embassy.He has interest to produce documentary films and started to learn documentary film in different film organizations. He produced many documentary films such as “Mobile library”, “trashcan” and “Red Bridge”. He likes continue filmmaking and learn more about documentary film.
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Hamza Bangash
Hamza Bangash is the creative director of Karachi based boutique production house, CityLights Productions. His short films and documentaries have been screened in India, Cannes, Israel and Lahore. A Qalambaaz-screenwriting fellowship alumni, he is currently developing his first feature. Hamza Bangash is an independent filmmaker and playwright. He attended a number of international schools, after which he gained a place at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. He pursued a degree in theatre and film, and was awarded a Bachelor of Honours in Stage & Screen. Bangash has also worked on various projects for the ICRC, The Citizens Foundation, BOS and the Pakistani Mental Health Association. He is currently acting as the creative director at CityLights Productions, a Karachi-based production house.
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Hira Nabi
Hira Nabi works with film, video, archival material, sound, and text to build layers of meaning out of every day events. She works with memory, nostalgia, and daily rituals as an aesthetic trope. Using the camera as a form of archiving, and as documentation of the continuous present, her work is hybrid in its splicing of fiction and documentary. She received an MA in cinema and media studies from The New School, and a BA in video and cultural studies from Hampshire College. Her work has shown at galleries and film festivals in the US, Cuba, Pakistan, Canada and Spain.
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Ali Rizvi
Ali Rizvi is a film student. He has been involved in several social initiatives, and founded Ehsas Films Project in 2014, producing his first film, ‘Sapna’ which depicted a day in a Trans woman’s life in Karachi. The film has had an enormous local impact and has been used by organizations internationally as a tool for advocacy. It has been screened in India, Indonesia and the USA and won the best film award at the 4th Travel South Asia Film Festival. Ali has volunteered since age 15 with Rahnuma Family Planning Association of Pakistan. He has also served as an elected member of Rahnuma’s National Youth Network and Regional Coordinating Committee – Sindh region. Ali is an ACCA affiliate, currently pursuing Bachelors in Communication Studies and Design from Habib University, Karachi.
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Hassan Zaidi
Hassan Zaidi is studying Film & Television at the National College of Arts, Lahore. He have been selected by NCA for a scholarship program at the University of Austin at Texas, USA where he completed his third year of filmmaking & worked on a feature length film to be produced by the UT Austin & NCA, as partner institutes. He worked as a cinematographer in the famous feature film ‘Shah’, based on the life of a Pakistani boxer Hussain Shah, who won a bronze medal at 1988 Summer Olympics and became the only boxer in Pakistan's history to secure an Olympic Medal. The film was released on 14th August, 2015. In 2016.m His another documentary film "Colours of Death", shows how the chickens are dyed in different colors and sold in the pet market, won the best documentary of the year in Zurich, Switzerland. The film has also been screened in different film festivals nationwide and is being appreciated. As a passionate filmmaker, he likes to explore wildlife, different people & places, cultures, ethnicities & traditions.
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Aaez Raza
Aaez Raza is from Islamabad. Born in Islamabad but have spent most of his life all around Pakistan owing to the fact that his father was in the military. Has spent a great deal of his life in various parts of the country which he believe has had a great impact on his perspective and empathy. He is a graduate of architecture from National College of Arts. He has been working professionally as an architect for about three years now, and have worked on multiple design projects including commercial, residential and institutional, one of them being the APS Monument in Peshawar, where he worked along Nayyar Ali Dada. He has immense interest in anything related to art and design, and he really aims to showcase his talents and abilities to the world, and possibly create a difference.
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Seemab Gul
Seemab is an independent filmmaker with a BA in Fine Art from Surrey Institute of Art & Design and an MA in Filmmaking from the prestigious London Film School. Her work has been supported by Channel 4, CBA WorldView and Arts Council England. She field produced a documentary ‘The Kingdom of Mr.Edhi’ that won the Silver Award at Biarritz FIPA and was broadcast on Spanish TV. She was a camera operator for the Oscar-nominated Italian director on a documentary called ‘Qualcosa di noi’. Seemab’s works have premiered in HotDocs, SXSW, Sheffield Doc Fest, Geneva Contemporary Art Centre and many international festivals and galleries. Seemab’s portfolio includes documentaries, drama, hybrid films and art installations.