Malek Shafi'i


Malek Shafi’i is an Afghan film director, producer, festival organizer, and human rights activist. He is the founder and executive director of the Afghanistan International Human Rights Film Festival. Based in Kabul, he has also worked extensively abroad.

Education

Shafi’i completed his early education in film making at the Baagh Ferdaws Filmmaking Center in Tehran and sociology studies at Kateb University in Kabul. He also attended film production and arts management courses in the Netherlands and the United States.

Biography

After 20 years of exile, Malek returned to Afghanistan in 2006 and founded Bashgahe Cinema, a nonprofit organization promoting cultural development in Afghanistan.
He organized the second and third Kabul International Documentary and Short Film Festivals in 2007 and 2008, and the Second Take Film Festival in 2008, focused on the intersection of gender, cinema and society in Afghanistan.
Malek has also worked as a senior media and communication advisor for Radio Television Afghanistan, working with non-governmental and international organizations as well as with the United Nations in Afghanistan, implementing film and media projects to promote the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. He has directed and produced more than 30 films,, some of which were awarded at international film festivals. Shafi'i was a jury member at the Tolo TV and Film Festival, Kabul Film Festival, and Amnesty Award of CPH-DOX, ADB My View video competition, and a category judge at the Banff Mountain Film Festival.
In 2011, Malek collaborated with Afghan documentary film-maker and human rights activist Diana Saqeb and multimedia producer and arts director Hassan Zakizadeh to launch the first edition of the Afghanistan Human Rights Film Festival in Kabul.

Selected filmography

Since 1999, Shafi'i has made more than 30 documentary and short fiction films, including:
  • 2012 - Bamyan the Land of Wonders, documentary for the Aga Khan Foundation
  • 2009 - Savings Groups, documentary for AKF
  • 2008 - Social Audit, documentary for AKF
  • 2007 - Self Helping Group, documentary for UN HABITAT
  • 2007 - Up to the Parliament, documentary about the campaign and political challenges of three female candidates in the first Afghanistan parliamentary election
  • 2005 - Pamir Territory, documentary about the Ismaili minority of Pamir, Afghanistan
  • 2005 - Drought in Hazarajat, documentary about drought in the Central Highland region of Afghanistan
  • 2004 - End of the Earth, documentary about September 11 and Afghan refugees in European countries
  • 2004 - Brown Package, as cinematographer, working with director Sohaila Jawaheri
  • 2003 - Kite, as cinematographer, working with director Razi Mohebi
; Documentary series
; Documentary collaborations
  • 2012 - Mohtarama - About Shia Family Law and the troubles of women in Afghanistan, including the lack of political and social rights, domestic violence, troubled married lives, and street harassment; co-directed with Diana Saqab.
  • 2010 - These Three Women - About three female activists of the Independent Administrative Reform and Civil Service Commission of Afghanistan; co-directed with Diana Saqab.
  • 2009 - Run Roobina Run - About Roobina Moqimyar, the first Afghan athlete in the Olympic Games. Shot during the Beijing Olympic Games.
  • 2007 - Twenty Five Percent - About the six female Afghan Members of Parliament, their private lives as wives, mothers and daughters, and their attempts to serve society both within and outside of Parliament, in a traditional and male-dominated environment; co-directed with Diana Saqab.

Awards

Jury memberships