Draft:Shehzad Ahmad

Shehzad Hameed Ahmad is a Pakistani documentary filmmaker, producer and journalist. His documentaries have been filmed across Brazil, Bangladesh, Norway, Australia, New Zealand, United States, Pakistan, Philippines, Cambodia, Afghanistan, India, Sri Lanka, Egypt, Malaysia, Indonesia and Nepal. He established Shehzad Hameed Films in 2022, where he serves as Freelance Director and Producer.

Ahmad has covered a variety of long-form stories concerning social and political issues, including the rise of white supremacist militia groups and Islamophobia across the United States, the rise of terrorism and militant groups like the Lashkar-e-Taiba, ISIS and Al-Qaeda and their impact on Pakistan, investigating the reasons behind illegal child marriages and its impact on women in Nepal, the consequences of illegal mining in Brazil’s protected Amazon rainforests, filming underwater to explore the impact of climate change on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, and covering conflict zones in Afghanistan, Indonesia, and the Philippines amongst other issues.

Ahmad’s work has been broadcast on Al Jazeera, TVF International, Toggle, Dawn News, VICE, National Geographic, TV Ontario, Deutsche Welle, CNA, Crime & Investigation Channel. He received the Prince of Asturias Award for International Cooperation on behalf of the Fulbright Program from the King of Spain in a ceremony in Asturias in 2014.

Ahmad has filmed more than 50 documentary films that have received numerous awards including 10 World Medals at New York Festivals,  3 Global Media Awards in Germany, a Green Image Award in Japan, 2 Silver Awards Handle Climate Change Film Festival in China, Singapore's 2015 Mediacorp News Award of the Year, the 2020 Gender Equality Impact Change-maker Singapore and Pakistan’s 2016 Agahi Award amongst others.

Early and personal life
Ahmad was born in Auchi, Nigeria in 1985 to Pakistani parents. He was raised and spent his early life in Islamabad, Pakistan. He married Colombian children’s book author and illustrator Elieth Sardinas in Singapore in 2017.

Education
Ahmad graduated with a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from Bahria University in 2008. Concurrently, he also obtained a Diploma in TV and Performing Arts from the Rawalpindi Arts Council in 2007. He received a Fulbright Scholarship, in 2012, earning a Master of Arts degree in News and Documentary Journalism from New York University in 2014.

Career
Ahmad began his professional career as an Outdoor Producer for Star Asia TV in 2005. He became part of the launch team of Pakistan’s first English-language television station when he joined Dawn News Television as an Associate Producer and Reporter in 2007, where he worked with Saima Mohsin’s flagship program News Eye. He briefly worked with UTRADE magazine in 2010, where he co-designed the layout for various editions of the magazine and subsequently became Editor-in-Chief at ALLAINET from 2010 to 2011. In 2012, he joined the launch team of Capital TV as an Associate Producer in the Current Affairs department. He resigned a year later when he won the Fulbright scholarship. He joined Vice Media as a Production Assistant during his Master’s degree in New York City, focusing on research and pitch crafting for the award-winning Vice for HBO series. In 2020, he became the first Pakistani to become Jury at the Association of International Broadcasting Awards.

From 2015 to 2022, Ahmad worked as a Senior Producer with Mediacorp’s Channel NewsAsia (CNA), where he made, managed and promoted documentaries on global issues, from human rights issues to environmental concerns, across various platforms. In 2022, he established Shehzad Hameed Films as Freelance Producer and Director, overseeing the production of documentary films across various countries.

Documentary filmmaking
In 2014, Ahmad produced and directed his NYU thesis film, The Pakistan Four, that was filmed across Portland, Chicago, Orlando, Atlanta, Charlotte, New York City, and Washington DC that won the Best Documentary Award at the Indiana Film Festival in 2014 where he followed the journey of Pakistan’s first female sabre fencer Hareem Ahmad, first British Pakistani stand-up comic Nadia Manzoor, first female weightlifter Kulsoom Abdullah and first female Pakistani chef to win Chopped (Food Network) Fatima Ali.

In 2015, Ahmad filmed, edited, produced and directed Flight Of The Falcons, a feature-length documentary on girls' education as part of the Bring Back Our Girls series for Channel News Asia Singapore, which discussed child marriages, corporal punishment, and street harassment, resulting in 25 million out-of-school children in Pakistan. The film was endorsed by the Malala Fund as part of the #HeForShe Campaign, made it to the final list of 2015 Asia-Pacific Child Rights Awards for Television and received the Community Portraits Gold Award at New York Festivals in 2016.

Covering human rights issues
In 2016, Ahmad directed two episodes of the investigative documentary series Undercover Asia, that included Chained in Debt which followed activists across Punjab tracking down the exploitation of bonded laborers and their forceful religious conversions in Sindh. The second investigative film Kasur’s Lost Children was filmed in the village of Hussain Khanwala covering the stories of child abuse victims which received the 2016 Silver World Award at the New York Festivals as well as the 2016 MediaCorp’s Feature Story Of The Year Award.

Ahmad then traveled to Nepal to film and direct the documentary Nepal’s Child Brides, that investigated the reasons behind child marriages, rising teenage pregnancies and dowry-related murders. The film received the 2020 Gender Equality Impact Changemaker (Male Individual) Award by United Women Singapore. In 2018, Ahmad traveled to Afghanistan during the War Against Terror between American forces and the Taliban to film his 2-part documentary series Enemy Within. The series was filmed with journalists documenting Afghanistan's history since the US invasion in 2001, to understand the reasons behing Taliban gaining control of the territory. He also embedded with the Afghanistan National Army to film the confict between the Ashraf Ghani government and the Taliban. The series was given the 2020 Outstanding Achievement Award at the Tagore International Film Festival, alongside the Documentary Feature Award at the Canada International Film Festival, the Best Feature Documentary award at the Paris Film Festival, two silver awards at Germany’s World Media Festivals and New York Film Festivals.

Covering terrorism and extremism
In 2020, Ahmad directed and produced his documentary series The Terror Trail, where he invesigated the political, social, and economic centers of radicalism, and comprehend the reasons behind militancy and the aiding of non-state terror outfits in Asia. Filmed in Pakistan, the first part investigated why Hafiz Saeed, the person behind the 2008 Mumbai attacks, was being allowed to contest the 2018 general elections through the Milli Muslim League. Filmed in Indonesia, part two examined how the Islamic State was penetrating Indonesia's moderate version of Islam through cyber radicalization, resulting in attacks across the country. The third part was filmed across the Philippines and explored why a failure to reconstruct Marawi after the 5-month siege against the Islamic State fuelled another ideological battle between local Muslims displaced by the war. The same year, Ahmad filmed, edited, and produced Whiter Shade of Terror, to analyze the rise of the white supremacist movements across Australia, Europe, and America to investigate the specific methods they use. He embedded with white Christian militias to understand Islamophobia and gun laws across the United States.

In 2020, Ahmad produced and directed In Bad Faith, a three-part series investigating the rise of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh in India, the Islamic Defenders Front in Indonesia, and Sri Lanka’s Buddhist outfit Bodu Bala Sena and their impact on multi-faith, multi-ethnic societies. The first part focused on understanding the roots of BJP’s Hindu first policy of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). The second part was filmed across Pakistan and Indonesia to investigate the creation of groups like Indonesia’s Islamic Defenders Front which aimed to create an Islamic caliphate. Part three delved into how Sri Lankan politicians exploit religious divisions by funding monks of the Bodu Bala Sena to divide and rule the country. He received the 2022 Highly Commended Award at Association of International Broadcasting for India’s Saffron Brigade.

Covering climate change
Ahmad’s work has also centered on climate issues across the world. In 2017, his series The Politics of Climate Change investigated the politics of greed that is leading to a rise in global greenhouse emissions. Filmed across the northern glaciers, Pakistan's Himalayan Meltdown investigated how the Himalayan glacier meltdown would impact the lives of people. His focus then shifted to Brazil's Amazon rainforest to film with the Munduruku tribe about the adverse impacts of gold mining in protected areas of the forests. He filmed the third part to understand water and show the coral bleaching of Australia’s great barrier reef and how greenhouse emissions were responsible for that while documenting the efforts of activists addressing these critical issues, winning the 2021 Green Image Award at the 8th Green Image Film Festival in Japan, and the 2020 Silver Award in Shenzhen, China by the Handle Climate Change Film Festival.

In 2021, Ahmad produced the series Once Upon A River exploring water scarcity in Asia and the effects of climate change. The first part was filmed in Bangladesh to investigate the low-lying plains of Bangladesh which may go underwater because of monsoon floods, leading to residents becoming climate refugees. Part 2 was filmed across Indonesia to show how chemical discharge into the Citarum River made it the "world's most polluted river". The third part focused on the effects of Cambodia's new hydropower dams on the Mekong River on fishing and farming communities. Bangladesh’s Delta Disaster was awarded for being the best documentary at the Tagore and Madras international film festivals in 2021.

Ahmad directed and produced Pakistan’s Heat Storm in 2022 to film the heat wave in Pakistan that led to glacial ice melting in the country’s north, leading to large-scale flooding in the country. He followed it up with another documentary The Crisis After Pakistan’s Floods to film the worst flooding in Pakistan’s history that submerged one-third of the country. In 2023, he produced and directed the series The Mass Extinction, analyzing the impact of climate change on biodiversity, focusing on endangered Asian elephants in India and green sea turtles in the Philippines, for which he received the 2023 Best Documentary Gold Award at the Tokyo Film Awards. In 2024, he delved into the rise of fake news and disinformation in his two-part documentary series Fact vs Fiction, investigating the ideological, political and financial ecosystems spreading false news across India. The second part focused on the Philippines, revealing how sophisticated networks of political trolls were hired to exacerbate social divisions, leading to an erosion of trust in democratic institutions.

Awards and honors

 * 2014 – J. William Fulbright Scholarship
 * 2014 – Prince of Asturias Award, Fulbright Global Program for International Cooperation
 * 2015 – Asia Pacific Child Rights Award, New York Film Festivals
 * 2016 – Agahi Journalist of the Year Award, London Film Festival
 * 2016 – Community Portraits Gold Award, New York Festivals
 * 2016 – Feature Story Of The Year Award, Mediacorp
 * 2017, 2019 – Silver World Award, New York Festivals
 * 2019 – Best Feature Documentary Award, Canada International Film Festival
 * 2019 – Bronze World Award, New York Festivals
 * 2020 – Outstanding Achievement Award, Tagore International Film Festival
 * 2020 – Silver Awards, World Media Festivals Germany
 * 2020 – Gender Equality Impact Changemaker (Male Individual) Award, United Women Singapore
 * 2020 – Silver Award, Handle Climate Change Film Festival
 * 2021 – Green Image Award, 8th Green Image Film Festival in Japan
 * 2021 – Bronze Award, World Media Festivals
 * 2021 – Best Documentary Award, Tagore International Film Festival
 * 2021 – Best Feature Documentary Award, Paris Film Festival
 * 2022 – Human Rights Category Film Award, New York Festivals
 * 2022 – Outstanding Achievement Award, Sundarban International Film Festival
 * 2022 – Highly Commended Award, Association of International Broadcasting
 * 2023 – Best Documentary “Gold” Award, Tokyo Film Awards

Filmography

 * 2014: The Pakistan Four
 * 2015: Flight of the Falcons
 * 2016: Undercover Asia: Kasur’s Lost Children
 * 2016: Undercover Asia: Chained In Debt
 * 2017: Trump’s America
 * 2017: The Road To Jihad
 * 2017: Rise and Fall of Mujib
 * 2017: Nepal’s Child Brides
 * 2018: Silk Road: China’s Pakistani Revolution
 * 2018: Silk Road: Egypt: China’s Gateway to Africa
 * 2018: Enemy Within: Caught in the Crossfire
 * 2018: Enemy Within: The Battle For Kabul
 * 2019: Pakistan’s Mainstreaming Terror
 * 2019: Inside Indonesia’s Caliphate
 * 2019: The Ashes of Marawi
 * 2019: Whiter Shade of Terror
 * 2020: Brazil’s Amazonian Battle
 * 2020: Australia’s Coal Conundrum
 * 2020: Pakistan’s Himalayan Meltdown
 * 2020: Stronger: The Battle Against COVID-19
 * 2020: Survival: Developing Countries on the Frontline
 * 2021: Bangladesh’s Delta Disaster
 * 2021: Saving Indonesia’s Citarum
 * 2021: Trouble on the Mekong
 * 2021: The War Comes Home
 * 2022: India’s Saffron Brigade
 * 2022: Islam’s Battle Within
 * 2022: Rise of Militant Buddhism
 * 2022: China in Taliban’s Afghanistan
 * 2022: Pakistan’s Heat Storm
 * 2022: The Crisis After Pakistan’s Floods
 * 2022:  India’s Endangered Elephants
 * 2022: Oceans of Plastic
 * 2023: Pakistan Debt Bomb
 * 2024: India’s Disinformation War
 * 2024: Philippines – Detecting Deception