Shazia Ali Khan

Shazia Ali Khan is a Pakistani-born former business executive who is now a filmmaker. She spent three years as a brand manager for Unilever before deciding to pursue her true passion. She then attended the London Film Academy to earn a degree in filmmaking, and she hasn't looked back since. She pursued her Master’s degree in business management (M.B.A) from Lahore University of Management Sciences. She has also pursued a professional diploma degree in Digital Media Marketing, Digital communication, and Multimedia from Digital Marketing Institute.

She has resided and worked in the UK, and South Africa, and is currently in the UAE where she owns and operates a production company ‘Shaz Media Productions or Shaz Films’. She is also the founder of ‘Shaz Design Studio’ where she ran a western wear Label ‘Shaz Design Studio’ in Johannesburg, South Africa. This Label included clothes and accessories inspired and created from Eastern designs, workmanship, fabrics, and embellishments. 

After Shazia Ali Khan established Shaz Media Production in 2016, she began to work on her signature film, "Pinky Memsaab," an outstanding independent feature film that she also co-produced, scripted, and directed. In terms of cast and crew, the movie was a collaboration of regions. It was produced and shot in Dubai. It had a good run in Pakistan's Everyready Studio and VOX Cinemas throughout the GCC. The movie was then picked up by Netflix, where it was streamed for four years and became popular in many nations, including the US, UK, Japan, India, etc. The studio has also produced marketing materials for SME companies operating in the UAE.

She was highly inspired to start making films from the movie ‘The Monsoon Wedding’ by Mira Nair Mira Nair, a veteran Filmmaker, based in New York >> Read More... . She developed and oversaw the direction of the well-known chat program "Talking Divas" for ARY London earlier in her career. She has also produced and directed socially conscious documentaries, such as TCF and School Aid, throughout South Asia and Africa.

In 2018, she wrote, directed, and coproduced her first full-length feature film, Pinky Memsaab, which was released throughout the GCC. The movie won best movie at "UKAFF" in 2019 and was subsequently acquired by Netflix, where it was broadcast internationally for four years in a row. Shazia lives in Dubai and works as an adjunct professor at Middlesex University where she teaches undergrad film programs such as Advanced Directing, Advanced Scriptwriting, Advanced Producing, and Film Entrepreneurship in addition to managing her production company.