Shuja Uddin Brings A Multicultural Lens to Film Education This Fall
Educator, Filmmaker, and Screenwriter, Shuja Uddin
Welcoming Shuja Uddin to Austin School of Film’s robust faculty of all living & working film + creative industries professionals teaching the next generation of creators.
It is no secret that Austin School of Film has been helping students access education & resources within film & creative industries since its founding in 2002. Shuja’s social justice approach to film education is something that Austin School of Film seeks in each & every faculty member. A graduate from Boston University with an MFA in Screenwriting, Shuja was born and raised in Karachi, Pakistan and has worked with notable organizations such as the Austin Film Society and Leo Burnett and his writings have been published in the Times of India, Film Companion, The Wire, and The Express Tribune.
Shuja’s short film “Article 370” received an Honorable Mention in Prague International Indie Film Quarterly Festival 2021 edition for Best Screenwriter, and the film is now a semi-finalist for Annual Competition. He was also the first ever lead writer and showrunner for PUBG Mobile Pakistan Gully Squads series, a popular video game owned by Chinese tech giant Tencent Games.
The stories that excite Shuja as a screenwriter are about postcolonial narratives in contemporary South Asia particularly urban Pakistan and how characters from diverse backgrounds and identities respond to a politically vibrant and increasingly volatile region. The themes in his stories are inspired from personal experiences navigating through his growing years in mega-city Karachi along with his immigration to the post-2016 United States where the country was going through its own polarization. His interests in storytelling are about personal and domestic life affected by the politically tense South Asia, the effects of migration and the challenges of identity for the South Asian diaspora in the United States as well as the growing digitalization of Pakistan in the emerging middle class.
Shuja will be leading Austin School of Film’s award-winning Digital Filmmaking: Script to Screen film production course beginning in August 2021. This hands-on 8-week class will take students through the entire process of making a short film from concept to festival screening.
This course is structured for emerging filmmakers & media creators who need to learn the foundational basics of all phases for film production & using film as mode for meaningful storytelling. Our method of teaching is hands-on with real film equipment and an actual production of your own short film. Films completed in this course have gone on to be showcased in film festivals around the world and have been proven to be a vital step in emerging creators' creative careers.
Welcome, Shuja!
Follow Shuja on social media at:
Instagram: @snarky_karachite
Twitter: @SnarkyKarachite
Film stills & images c/o Shuja Uddin