The award-winning director, writer and Royal Holloway alumna, Shamim Sarif, speaks to us about the importance of diverse storytelling and why she’s coming into her prime
In 1987, the award-winning novelist, screenwriter and director Shamim Sarif was in her first year reading English Literature at Royal Holloway when an episode of Inspector Morse was filmed on campus. “I remember seeing it and thinking ‘wow.’”
Some 35 years later, Shamim is revolutionising the film and television industry. Fresh from directing an episode of the hit Netflix series, YOU, she recently released Polarized, her latest feature film which she wrote and directed as well as co-produced alongside her partner, Hanan Kattan, under the couple’s production company Enlightenment Productions. It premiered at BFI Flare, Europe’s largest queer film festival, to glowing reviews.
The film tells the story of Lisa and Dalia, two women living in the same small Canadian town but from very different backgrounds – one evangelical Christian, one Palestinian Muslim. They find comfort in one another as they struggle with their sexual identities while contending with the prejudices of their families.
Filmed in the rural province of Manitoba, the vast Canadian vistas make for a sparsely dramatic backdrop to the story. “There were certain themes that I wanted to explore. I’m from an immigrant family and my parents are South African of Indian background, Hanan’s family is Palestinian, so it’s an interesting narrative,” says Shamim.
“Around the time that Trump was elected and Brexit was happening, I think a lot of us felt that it was being pushed into more of an immigration play than it needed to be. There was a lot more extremist rhetoric happening against anybody who wasn’t quite like ‘you’ – this defining of the ‘other’ – so the story of Polarized really rose out of that. It troubled me that in this day and age in North America, in Europe, in the UK, people can be very much separated by their economic class, by their religion, by their race,” she adds.
It is precisely the kind of story Shamim wanted to tell when she and Hanan started their production company. “The reason we started Enlightenment Productions is because we wanted to tell stories which were really female-forward, featuring women in front of and behind the camera, women of colour wherever we could and often stories that had queer characters as well,” says Shamim. “That is kind of accepted now but 10 or 15 years ago when we started it was really difficult to get stories made that didn’t have at least one man in them or ideally a white guy who could be cast with a well-known actor.”
It was a frustrating reality. “We were always being asked to ‘de-gay’ this character, or make that character white, or make another one a man. Some of the stories I wanted to tell were not seen as commercial. Now, of course, we realise that we can see a story with a person of colour in it and we can all relate to it but that was seen to be kind of new back then.”
As a result, many of Enlightenment Productions’ early movies were regarded as “quite niche,” says Shamim. “They were marginalised as LGBTQ+ movies which they were, but not just that. People are now being pushed to find qualified women who can come in and direct things like YOU, whereas before there was a tendency to just put the people that you knew in there as a director – it was safer, easier, and it tended to be the same group of white men,” she says. “That was kind of standard because there was very much a formula to the way things were being made. There still is, to an extent and it is very cast-driven but now there is much more openness to more diverse stories, although I think there’s still a long way to go.”
Shamim was determined to bring a female lens to the episode of YOU which she directed (episode 3, ‘Eat the Rich.’) “I’ve directed maybe 10 or 15 episodes of different shows now and I do try to choose things that I have a kinship to, and I feel I can add value to,” she says. “YOU was a great opportunity to come to the script and work with Penn Badgley (the Amercian actor who plays lead character Joe Goldberg in the series) and the cast to see if I could put as much as I could of a female gaze into it, for that episode.”
The scope of Shamim’s refreshing and important take on diverse storytelling is matched by her prolific output. Having just released YOU and Polarized, she is writing the pilot for a potential TV adaptation of her two latest books, The Athena Protocol and The Shadow Mission, which are being developed as a series with Village Roadshow Pictures and Gran Via Productions (whose credits include Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul.)
Shamim’s previous features as writer/director include Despite the Falling Snow, starring Rebecca Ferguson and Charles Dance, which won 13 awards, and I Can’t Think Straight, which debuted at Palm Springs Film Festival and won 11 awards. Her follow up movie The World Unseen debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival before garnering 23 awards internationally.
All three feature films were adapted from her novels, but Shamim keeps the disciplines separate when she is writing. “I think I generally write in quite a clear visual style so that’s helpful, but when I’m writing a novel it’s very much with my novelist hat on and I try and stay in that space and not worry about any potential adaptations,” she says.
Throughout her degree, Shamim always wanted to write and make films but joined her family’s finance business when she graduated. “It was a placeholder for me but on weekends and in the evenings, I made an effort to continue writing. Eventually I started to get short stories published and then finally a novel and then at that point I said ‘ok, now I’m going to call myself a writer and give it a go.’”
Shamim’s experience demonstrates the importance of perseverance in pursuing a career as a writer and filmmaker. “I think the bar is high. There are a lot of places that are now commissioning content – there is more production than ever – but every time I pitch a project, I’m one of maybe six pitches they’re hearing that day,” she says. “My advice is to practice your craft, don’t ever stop learning and be very tenacious. If you’re sure this is what you want to do and you feel it’s the only thing you must do, then just don’t give up because it’s like digging for gold. You can dig, dig, dig, and then turn around at the halfway point – it really does take longer than you might think, but it’s worth it.”
Shamim and Hanan have two sons, one of whom is now working and the other is at university. “It was hairy raising a family and doing independent films and writing novels – it’s not a stable income,” Shamim says. “But now I feel like it’s a really great time – the boys are older and so if we need to shoot off to film something for a few months it doesn’t matter, they’ll come out to see us and it’s not the end of the world.”
Now in her 50s, Shamim Sarif is coming into her prime. “Yes, it does feel that way, actually,” she agrees. “Also, at this point with all these offers coming through I have the experience with the craft of directing and writing to be able to take maximum advantage of them which is wonderful.”
www.shamimsarif.com
@shamimsarif
YOU is available to watch on Netflix
By journalist and Royal Holloway alumna, Jessica Jonzen (BA English 2004)
