Malek Shafi'i

Malek Shafi’i (ملک شفیعی ) is a film director, producer, festival organiser, and human rights activist from Afghanistan.

Malek Shafi’i is the Founder and Executive Director of Afghanistan International Human Rights Film Festival (AIHRFF). He is an award-winning film documentary maker based in Kabul and has been working in the war-torn country and abroad for the past 13 years. Shafi’i completed his education at Baagh Ferdaws Filmmaking Center in Tehran and Sociology studies in Kateb University in Kabul. Additionally, he attended film production, arts management courses and studies in the Netherlands and the United States. Malek returned to Afghanistan after 20 years of exile and founded "Bashgahe Cinema - Afghanistan Cinema Club – BASA Film " in 2006, a non-profit organization that promotes cultural and arts development projects with a focus on training and producing the work of emerging afghan filmmakers in Afghanistan. Other cultural projects where he has collaborated extensively include: Kabul International Documentary and Short Film Festival; and Second Take Film Festival 2008 – a film festival that juxtaposes the theme of "gender, cinema and society" in Afghanistan.

Malek has also acted as a Senior Media and Communication Advisor for RTA (Radio Television of Afghanistan), different NGO's and international organizations as well as with the United Nations system of agencies in Afghanistan, implementing film and media projects on the promotion of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. He has directed and produced more than 30 films. Some of them won international film awards from different international film festivals in previous years. Shafi’i was a Jury member of the Tolo TV Film Festival, Kabul Film Festival, Amnesty Award of CPH-DOX, ADB (Asian Development Bank) My View Video competition and in the category judge of BANFF. Malek is a 2012 ArtsLink Residencies program Fellow in Visual Arts and Media, a program that engages communities through international arts partnerships. In order to use the power of traditional and new media to influence filmmaking and impact human rights and to connect Afghanistan's current situation to other human rights issues from other parts of the world and with the need to create a cinematography stage to help Afghan filmmakers showcase their talent and expertise to Afghan filmgoers and the international audience living in Afghanistan, Malek joined creative forces with Afghan documentary filmmaker and human rights activist Diana Saqeb and Multimedia Producer and Arts Director Hassan Zakizadeh in 2011 to launch the first edition of Afghanistan Human Rights Film Festival in Kabul, as well as other provinces of the country with the main objective of bringing human rights stories to a broader audience and to the real Afghan context.

We have been working towards this festival since 2009 and we are delighted that the first Human Rights Film Festival held in Kabul on 1–7 October 2011.

2007 Small City Great Expectations / 6 episodes / each 25m / Afghanistan/ A research documentary series on the following topics to give an image of what is happening in Afghanistan six years after the fall of the Taliban:

SPECIAL SCREENINGS 2007 Screening of Malek's three documentaries (End of the Earth, Pamir Territory, and Up to the Parliament), Academy of Art, Tehran. Review and discussion of Afghan Cinema 2006 Screening of Malek's three documentaries (End of the Earth, Pamir Territory, and Up to the Parliament) at the Singapore Film Society and discussion on Afghanistan's challenges

2003 Afghanistan, Heart of Asia / 9 episodes / each 25m / Afghanistan / An investigative reporting documentary series on the seven provinces of Afghanistan after the fall of Taliban; how the provinces look now, the local residents expectations of assistance from the international community, their daily lives and challenges, and historic and picturesque places to see and visit.

2000 Charaqhaye Rabeta / 5 episodes / each 25m / Iran / Autobiography and life of select Afghan Poets, Writers, Activists and Scientists who live in Iran

1999 Rewayat-e ‒ Hejr / 5 episodes / each 15m / Iran / About Illegal Afghan Refugees in Iran