NUST Student teacher combo secures grant for their film Tazheek
Student Teacher Combo of NUST School of Social and Humanities (S3H) including Ms Zoha Shakoor (MS Mass Communication 2k20) and Mr Salman Nasir (Assistant Professor, S3H) secured funding for a series of Short Films enabled by RINSTRA Technologies. The collaboration of NUST with RINSTRA will help young filmmakers to be able to produce quality content while working with professionals from the film industry and top-quality industry-standard equipment.
The Department of Mass Communication, at the School of Social Sciences & Humanities (S3H), NUST is collaborating with RINSTRA to create an enabling environment for the students across Pakistan to be able to produce shorts films, creative advertising pieces, theatrical performances, Music Videos, AR/VR Content, and Interactive films.
Zoha Shakoor, a student of Mass Communication Batch 2K20 who is currently pursuing her Master’s in Mass Communication and working on her final year project was selected as the first of many students whose idea was shortlisted for this initiative.
Her film is being supervised by Mr Salman Nasir. He has helped Ms Zoha secure this funding for her short film and is also the executive producer for this film. Salman is a filmmaker and storyteller who is a graduate of the National College of Arts, Lahore specializing in Multimedia Arts, Experimental filmmaking, and digital storytelling.
Ms Zoha Shakoor said, “As a female, I believe that we need tell new stories, I feel that there should be more representation of women in mainstream media as we comprise almost 50% of the population and we can’t be generalized based on how we are viewed by a select few who produce content.
It’s an absolute necessity for us to start to dig in and realize the importance of a good story and why it needs to be told. Choosing a short film as a medium of expression has been insightful and challenging, and this experience was a highly significant one.
This funding is part of a larger concept to create enabling environment for young filmmakers to be able to produce quality content while working with professionals from the industry and top-quality industry standard equipment. The acting team was an ensemble of young students from School of Natural Sciences, NUST Business School and School of Social Science and Humanities who worked for over a month to make this project a reality, some of which were working for the first time.
While speaking on the occasion Dr Najma Sadiq, (Head of Department of Mass Communication, S3H) said, “As we are strong advocates of supporting and developing the creative economy of Pakistan, we believe that collaboration of industry and academia is vital, and it provides students a practical exposure during their learning stage. It provides students with resources to experiment with their creative ideas and produce insightful, entertaining high-quality content. By bringing industry and academia together we can bridge the gap between theory and practice.
This is, however, a long-term process, that will build sustainable partnerships, that can change the outlook of our industry and help its outreach to its full creative potential by contributing locally and competing globally!”
Salman Nasir said, “the Creative Economy globally generates around $2.25 Trillion and helps create 30 million jobs, I think we must realize that we can no longer create innovative products that are limited to our local market, we must think global, and create enabling environments is the key to achieve the monumental task.
Mr Amir Jahangir (Chief Executive Officer RINSTRA), said “RINSTRA supports young filmmakers and storytellers via funding initiatives which will help them to produce the quality of production. RINSTRA aims to Support and create an enabling environment for the students across Pakistan to be able to produce shorts films, creative advertising pieces, theatrical performances, Music Videos, AR/VR Content, and Interactive films”. He further said, “The film will also be submitted for its content and creative approach to international film festivals and competitions as well.”
The entire NUST Family is extremely proud of both of these NUSTians, we wish them all the best for the future, looking forward to Tazheek!