One of the UK’s leading independent filmmakers, London-based Shamim Sarif’s four previous films have notched up a total of 47 awards including 13 awards for her most recent feature Despite the Falling Snow starring Rebecca Ferguson and Charles Dance, currently streaming on Netflix. Sarif’s TV directing credits include the recently released Season 4 of the Netflix smash hit YOU starring Penn Badgley which has been watched by over 40 million households, while she has also directed several TV series for HBO Max, Paramount and eOne.
A nuanced exploration of the immigrant experience, Polarized portrays the culture clash between bible belt White Canada and progressive Muslim Palestinians and is groundbreaking in its depiction of contemporary Palestinians beyond the shoebox of Middle Eastern conflict. Wild Rose meets Brokeback Mountain, this slow-burn tale follows a struggling singer/songwriter from a poor farming community coming to terms with her queer identity and the barriers thrown up by family, religion, race and community in the post-Trump/Brexit against a heady soundtrack of Arabic rap, hip hop and American country.
Writer and director Shamim Sarif is an award-winning novelist, screenwriter, feature film director, and director for premium series, including the new fourth season of YOU for Netflix/Warner.
Shamim’s latest feature film as a writer/director, Polarized, has just completed and made its debut at Berlin’s EFM in Feb 2023 and will premiere at BFI Flare in March 2023.
Her previous features as writer/director include Despite the Falling Snow, starring Rebecca Ferguson and Charles Dance. The film garnered 13 awards. Her first feature film as writer/director, I Can’t Think Straight debuted at Palm Springs Film Festival and won 11 awards. Her follow-up movie ‘The World Unseen’ debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival before garnering 23 awards internationally.
Her latest books, The Athena Protocol and The Shadow Mission, (HarperCollins) are being developed as a series with Village Roadshow and Gran Via Productions (Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul), with Shamim writing the pilot.
Shamim is of South Asian descent and identifies as LGBTQIA+. Her work has always focused on diversity, feminism, social impact and humanism. As well as YOU, her other series directing credits include SkyMed (Paramount Plus), Moonshine (eOne) and Diggstown(CBC/Fox). An accomplished speaker, Shamim has spoken at TED events worldwide, at the INK Conference in India and DLD in Munich. Corporate speaking events have included Deloitte, Goldman Sachs, Citibank and Disney.
Shamim was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (Oscars) in 2019. She is also a member of the BAFTA, the Writers Guilds of America and Canada, the Director’s Guild of Canada and the Canadian Media Producers Association. She lives in Toronto and London.
It hasn’t been easy
Speaking to Asian Voice, Shamim Sarif explained, “It hasn’t been easy. Especially when I started out because women of colour were very underrepresented both behind and in front of the camera. I think I got past it by always working on my craft and focusing on getting better until my work could speak for itself. But now there are more opportunities because there is a better awareness of bringing diversity into the industry, in part thanks to both the #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter movements. When I was starting out twenty years ago, Depa Mehta and Mira Nair were flying the flag for South Asian female directors, and they helped me to realise that a career as a film director could be possible. I was one of the first film directors who was both South Asian and Queer, and because of that my focus was telling queer stories, and this in itself created another set of barriers to overcome, it meant that my stories were harder to sell when trying to secure a theatrical release because they were outside the mainstream. However I persevered, and the response to my first two films The World Unseen and I Can’t Think Straight was so overwhelming that it was clear that queer representation was needed in the South Asian community. As soon as those two films were released I received a deluge of messages from women all over the world – but particularly from India and Pakistan – who finally felt validated by seeing female characters who were queer, but who could choose their own path and crucially have a happy ending.”
There’s still more we can do
Shamim further added, “As a South Asian film director, one of the challenges I faced, was the perception that I was only able to tell south Asian stories – so it’s important to me that I can now direct stories that are about a wider human experience, and to not just be pigeon-holed. For example, I recently directed an episode of the Netflix smash hit TV Series YOU. I think there has been a positive change in the industry. Post ~MeToo and #Black Lives Matter, it means that women of colour are being hired more frequently for directing jobs. But there’s still more we can do. Both women and the south Asian community can help each other to break down barriers through networking and creating new opportunities to tell important stories so that South Asian Women feel seen from new perspectives. For that reason, I always try to have a woman of colour shadowing my work, for example when I was filming Moonshine for eOne in 2022 I had the Canadian Pakistani film director Fawzi Mirza shadowing me because it’s important to me to lift up women of colour who are breaking into the industry.”
