Pakistani documentary filmmaker Shehzad Hameed Ahmad’s Bangladesh Delta Disaster has won the ‘Outstanding Achievement Award’ at the Sundarban International Film Festival in Bangladesh.
The documentary highlights Bangladesh’s battle to stay above water. By 2050, one in every seven people in the country will be displaced by climate-related factors. Shehzad and his crew went on a journey across the south Asian nation to understand why three quarters of the country is inundated by its rivers bursting their banks every year. On this journey, the filmmaker investigates how floods threaten the country’s food security, how soil erosion is leaving thousands homeless and meet climate refugees migrating from their homes to survive.
Along the way, we meet communities adapting to climate change by growing food on water in an effort to counter rising sea levels as rising sea-level threatens to overtake 11% of the country’s land within the next 30 years. The filmmaker visited the frontlines of the country’s battle against climate change to meet activists raising awareness against man-made changes to the country’s water resources which may leave a devastating impact on its economy.
Shehzad is a globally acclaimed documentary filmmaker with a record 10 World Medals at the New York Festivals, 3 Global Media Awards in Germany, Green Image Award in Japan, Silver Award at the 2020 Handle Climate Change Film Festival in China, Mediacorp News Award of the Year 2015, Pakistan’s Agahi Journalist of the Year 2016, Tagore Film Festival 2020 and 2021, Sweden Film Award 2021, Gender Equality Impact Change-maker (Male) by United Women Singapore 2020.
Awards and Honors
- Finalist at New York Festivals 2022 for Bangladesh’s Delta Disaster in the Climate Change and Sustainability category
- Finalist at New York Festivals 2022 for Trouble on the Mekong in the Human Rights category
- Won Best Feature Documentary Award at Paris Film Festival 2021 for Caught in the Crossfire
- Won ‘Most Commendable’ mention at the Association of International Broadcasting 2021 for Saving Indonesia’s Citarum
- Won Bronze World Medal at New York Festivals 2021 for ‘Brazil’s Amazonian Battle’
- Won Silver Award at World Media Festivals 20201 in Hamburg, Germany for Australia’s Coal Conundrum
- Won Green Image Award at the 8th Green Image Film Festival in Japan 2021 for Pakistan’s Himalayan Meltdown
- Won Best Documentary Award for Bangladesh’s Delta Disaster at the Tagore International Film Festival 2021
- Won Best Documentary Award for Bangladesh’s Delta Disaster at the Madras International Film Festival 2021.
- Finalist at the Muslim Film Festival for Whiter Shade of Terror, an investigation into white supremacist groups across the globe
- Won the Gender Equality Impact Changemaker (Male Individual) by United Women Singapore 2020 for Nepal’s Child Brides
- Awarded the Silver Award in Shenzhen, China by the Handle Climate Change Film Festival 2020 for Brazil’s Amazonian Battle
- Nominated for Pakistan’s most prestigious journalism competition, ‘Agahi Award 2020’ for Pakistan’s Himalayan Meltdown
- Society of Publishers in Asia: Award-Finalist ‘Pakistan’s Mainstreaming Terror‘ shortlisted as an award-finalist in the Excellence in Investigative Reporting category
- Award-Finalist for ‘Caught in the Crossfire‘ in the Excellence in Human Rights Reporting
- Served as Judge for the Associate of International Broadcasting Awards 2020
- Won the Silver World Award at New York Festivals 2020 for Whiter Shade of Terror in the Human Rights Category
- Won the Bronze World Award for Caught in the Crossfire in the Human Concerns Category
- Won the Silver award at the 2020 World Media Festivals | Television & Corporate Media Awards for Caught in the Crossfire in the Global Issues category
- Won the Silver award in the Documentary: Political category for The Battle for Kabul
- Won Outstanding Achievement Award at the Tagore International Film Festival 2020 for Enemy Within: Caught in the Crossfire
- Won the Silver World Award at the New York Festivals 2019 for Rise and Fall of Mujib in the History and Society Category
- Won the Bronze World Award – New York Festivals 2019: Received the award for Nepal’s Child Brides in the Community Portraits Category
- Won the Best Feature Documentary Category award at the Canada International Film Festival 2019 for Caught in the Crossfire
- Won the Silver World Award at the New York Festivals 2017: for Undercover Asia: Kasur’s Lost Children, an investigation into Pakistan’s biggest child abuse scandal
- Won the Gold World Award at the New York Festivals 2016: for Flight Of The Falcons in the Community Portrait category
- Prince of Asturias Award 2014: First Pakistani to receive Spain’s equivalent of the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the Fulbright Program, from the King of Spain, Prince Felipe VI held in Asturias, Spain
- MediaCorp Feature Story Of The Year Award 2016 – Kasur’s Lost Children wins at the MediaCorp News Award held in Singapore
- J William Fulbright Scholarship Award – Fully funded merit-based Fulbright Masters scholarship 2012-2014 Cohort at New York University
- Best Documentary Award – Indiana Film Festival 2014 in the short documentary competition for The Pakistan Four, a journey of four Pakistani Americans filmed across the United States
- Nominated for Asia-Pacific Child Rights Award 2015 by the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union and UNICEF for documentary on girl’s education: Flight of The Falcons
- Nominated for New York Festivals – Human Concerns 2017: For the documentary Kasur’s Lost Children
- Nominated for 2015 Asia Pacific Child Rights Award among top ten TV documentaries by UNICEF and Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union
