I’m Nasheed: a writer, director and spinner of yarns. I’ve made documentaries and fiction, and I’ve written about cinema and culture. My work has played internationally (from Cannes and London to Los Angeles) and been championed by festivals such as Tongues on Fire and NYIFF.
I’m currently working on a couple of different projects that are concerned with life as I know it and film history. You can watch many of my films here.
The first documentary I made –David Hawkins: A Battle of the Mind – was nominated for AHRC Research Film of the year in 2017. My feature film, People Are Strange, was selected for iFeatures 2018/2019. In 2021 I completed Re-Reading Fanon, an hour long documentary about the psychiatrist and philosopher Frantz Fanon that features Jean Khalfa, Robert J. C. Young, Achille Mbembe, Daniel Pick and Samia Khatun. I am grateful to all the people whom I have worked with, and endebted to the artists and thinkers who have shaped and encouraged my work.
I care about independent filmmaking and have spoken at Newcastle University, the Cambridge Film Festival (2023), book launches and panel discussions. I also serve on the board of the Cambridge Film Trust and the Directors’ Charitable Foundation.
I am a Clore Fellow, selected to be an Arts Council of England Fellow on the Clore Cultural Leadership Programme. Educated at Wadham College, Oxford (where I read English), I’ve also completed an MFA in Directing from the Film Program at Columbia University in New York (where I destroyed nearly all the films I made) and an MA in Cultural Theory from Queen Mary in London (where I studied under Jacqueline Rose, Morag Shiach and others). At the beginning of my career I spent three formative years working, in production and development, for Merchant Ivory (the makers of Remains of the Day, Heat and Dust and Maurice); their support and my relationship with them has endured to this day. I have received awards from the Society of Authors’ Trust, the Film and TV Charity, Screen Skills, Columbia University and Bloomsbury Books.
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Find my work on: Vimeo | Youtube
Read my essay about “Black Narcissus” (Powell & Pressburger, 1947) for the BFI Cinema Unbound Season.
Read my essay for the launch of The Museum of Colour
Read my Clore/AHRC research on diversity in the UK cultural sector.
Member of Liberty, WGGB, Directors UK, Society of Authors and BAFTA Connect.
I am an ILM Level 7 accredited coach (I trained with RD1st) and have completed part one (Intelligence) in Organization and Relationship Systems Coaching.
To get in touch about mentoring or tutoring please contact my agency Osborne Cawkwell. For anything else please use this form and I will endeavour to get back to you within 7 days.
Nasheed Qamar Faruqi 