Zahida Pirani

Zahida Pirani is a writer/director/producer based in New York City and Los Angeles. She is the recipient of the 2021 Princess Grace Award in Film. She is currently a Directing MFA candidate at UCLA where she received the prestigious Jack Nicholson Distinguished Student Director Award. As a filmmaker, Zahida highlights the extraordinary circumstances in the everyday lives of people not often represented on the screen. Zahida directed and produced the award-winning short documentary "Judith: Portrait of a Street Vendor." The documentary premiered at The Queens Museum in New York City and is currently distributed by Third World Newsreel. Zahida previously worked in the nonprofit sector as a community organizer, organizational consultant, and executive director. She studied nonfiction filmmaking at Columbia University as a Charles H. Revson Fellow. She holds a B.A. from UC Berkeley in Comparative Literature and Religious Studies and an M.A. in Social and Cultural Anthropology from the New School for Social Research.