Filmmaker

Shakila Taranum Maan has been part of the British arts scene since the mid-1970’s. In this time she has written, produced and directed plays for her own and other theatre companies, before venturing into film production and directing. In 1990, Shakila graduated from the London College of Printing with a degree in Film and Video Production.

Over the past ten years, Shakila has strived to perfect her art, and has written and directed at least one film a year. “Ferdous”, her graduation film, won Best Art Film at the Latin American Film Festival and was screened worldwide in Melbourne, Los Angeles, New York, and the Tate Gallery and National Film Theatre in London. In 2001, Shakila collected the Pierre Cardin Award for Best Art Film at the Asolo Film Festival in Italy, with “Alone Together”, a documentary she directed. Her first feature film, ‘A Quiet Desperation’ (now retitled "The Winter Of Love"), premiered as the opening film for Raindance East at the Raindance Film Festival, London 2001, and has since screened at Cannes, the NFT, Watermans and the Phoenix in Leicester. Time Out says of this film, "Atmospheric and effectively scored... this tale of one man's journey through a quasi-deserted city and the past provides a welcome insight into a little-known London community." 

A diverse musical score provides strong accompaniment to many of Shakila’s films, such as ‘The Winter Of Love’, ‘Ferdous’, ‘A Thousand Borrowed Eyes’ and ‘Dark Skies’. While vivacious colours and lucid imagery come alive in the carefully constructed frames, particularly in ‘The Winter Of Love’. The courage to explore daring themes in depth is also a strong feature of Shakila’s style, and she works economically, heightening tension and emphasising the visual performance with sparse dialogue and periods of silence.

Shakila’s introduction to the world of film was at her father's film club. A weekly gathering of film enthusiasts who convened under a Kenyan night sky to watch Hindi films from Bombay - screened on a big white bed sheet from a 16mm projector. Her family would travel for miles across the border from Tanzania or Uganda, to enjoy up to three films in one evening. This was the era of local cinemas and drive-ins, when fireflies danced on car windscreens, competing with the flickering movie image. The warm beauty of Africa and a magical exposure to the world through film is the environment that nurtured Shakila’s filmmaking ambition.

Her work and performances echo this enchanting upbringing, as does the acerbic environment Shakila found herself in as a child, exiled from her home, aged eleven. The Ugandan government undertook the expulsion of Asians in 1972, which had a widespread affect in East Africa, forcing Shakila and her family to leave Kenya and migrate to England. This ‘outsider’s’ existence is the common thread that embroiders all her work. In 2003, Shakila made a short film, ‘Dark Skies’, based on a true story of an affluent woman she knew as a teenager, abandoned on the streets of London by those she loved. Fallen from favour, the woman now passes her time lamenting for her childhood, when days were warm and long and she was surrounded by the sights and sounds of the African jungle. Now, it's cold and the only roar is from the ceaseless traffic, and every day is like the day before.

Shakila’s work is clearly emotionally charged, taking you on a journey down the highways of her artistic and political expression. Her strong identity as a British Asian is transcended by her desire to understand the humanity of the characters and scenarios she presents. Historical and social references pervade her work, and her films are littered with depictions of the seedy as well as the sensual. Her film style is offbeat and contemporary, duly respectful yet brutally honest and true to the story.

Shakila attempts to tell her stories through imagery. In ‘The Winter Of Love’, the main character Shammi is quickly established as the outsider, rarely speaking except out of necessity. This approach sets a dynamic pace from the beginning, which does not remove from the elegiac circumstances of the protagonists' life, but serves to heighten the longing for inclusion and justice for our hero.