Shamim Sarif

Writer and director Shamim Sarif is an award-winning novelist, screenwriter and director for film and TV. She is also a long-time advocate for the rights of women and the LGBTQ+ community. Her new book, The Athena Protocol, is a feminist thriller released by HarperCollins in October 2019 as the first in a Young Adult series. The book is being developed for TV with Shamim attached to write the pilot. Harper Collins will release a sequel, The Shadow Mission, in October 2020. Shamim's most recent feature as writer/director is Despite the Falling Snow, which released in the US in March 2017. The movie stars Rebecca Ferguson and Charles Dance and is based on her acclaimed second novel set in Cold War Moscow, published by St Martin's Press and Hodder. The movie garnered 13 awards. Her first feature film as writer/director, I Can't Think Straight won 11 awards. Her follow up movie The World Unseen based on her award-winning book, debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival before garnering 23 awards internationally. Her third film, a documentary called The House of Tomorrow, was shot on location in Jerusalem. Shamim's next film projects are Arranged, a romantic comedy set in the UK and India, and Polarized; a contemporary love story between two women from very different sides of small town America. She is also working on a musical of I Can't Think Straight and developing a number of TV and film projects. She directed hit Canadian/British TV show, Murdoch Mysteries, in fall 2019. 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. Apart from her awards for films and books, Shamim is the recipient of several other accolades including the Variety Catherine award in 2017. Shamim is a member of BAFTA and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.