Shehrazade Sheikh

Shehrazade Sheikh is a notable and influential Pakistani director. She is one of the few prominent woman filmmakers of the country. She has not left any stone unturned. She has directed advertisements, movies, and television dramas and has done many other odd jobs as well. She graduated with B.A Honours, majoring in the field of Theatre, Film and Television. She studied at the Beaconhouse National University, situated at Lahore, in Pakistan. She is a Punjabi and was raised in Lahore. She considers Karachi as her second home and said in an interview that this city can induce fear and can also make a person fearless. It was during her college days when she realized that making films was her cup of tea. After graduation, she became an associate producer in two top television channels, to learn the ropes of filmmaking. After a short stint in television, she joined the renowned woman director, Mehreen Jabbar of Dil Mera Dharkan Teri movie fame, as her assistant. She worked for her in Pakistan for some time and then shifted to New York along with Mehreen and freelanced for her for a few more years. Before assisting Jabbar, Sheikh was working as a head for a top production house in Karachi. After picking up the nuances of movie making, she made her first movie called Ghar Aur Ghaata, which was produced by Six Sigma Entertainment for the television medium. Her ideology is to experiment and test untouched zones with each of her ventures. With this telefilm, she turned the young Nimra Bucha into a seventy-year-old lady, whose occupation is to sell sweets and candies.

After this successful entry Sheikh made a few soaps, such as the drama Silvatein, which was telecasted on the channel ARY in the year 2013. The drama is about two sisters and unlike other conventional serials, this turned out to be a different one and fetched Shehrazade a very good name. In this high budget and hyped serial, she took a risk by casting a newcomer in the lead role and was happy when she got the desired results. Almost all the serials and short movies that she has directed have females in very strong and effective roles. She does not like doing the conventional serials, in which the women are always suffering. Sheikh has broken the stereotype by making films and serials which portray ladies as tough and strong characters. She said in an interview that so far her journey in the film industry has been smooth and there has never been an instance of discrimination. Her inspiration and role model are - the film director Ang Lee, writer cum director Anurag Kashyap and the legendary writer Anwar Maqsood Sahib. If she was given a time machine, she would go back in time to the days when Anwar’s plays were directed and would direct one! This wonder woman, who is also a big foodie, loves listening to music and playing video games as well. Her recent work in the film industry was assisting the director Asim Raza in the movie Ho Mann Jahaan that was released in the beginning of 2016.