Afia Serena Nathaniel

Pakistani-American filmmaker, Afia Nathaniel, was raised between Lahore and several air force bases where she grew up with a deep love for fighter jet planes, long road trips and discovering worlds hiding in plain sight.

Afia’s debut feature Dukhtar premiered to a rousing reception at Toronto in 2014 and became Pakistan’s Official Oscar Submission for the “Best Foreign Language Film” category. The road trip thriller played to critical acclaim in over 20 countries to rave reviews and was the Critics’ Pick (Village Voice) and the People Magazine’s Pick of the Week. It was labelled as “exquisite” by New York Times and billed as “a road journey to end all road journeys” by Huffington Post. The screenplay for the film has been invited to the Academy’s Permanent Core Collection.

In 2022, Afia became the first Pakistani-American female director to be hired by a US network/studio in episodic directing for one-hour dramas. She has been featured in the Variety, NYT, Indiewire, NPR, Huffington Post and Screen Daily. Variety says, “Nathaniel proves her mettle in a national industry where distaff directors are rare”. Through her films, Afia explores pressing social justice issues of our times which a critic lauded as “a stunning, emotive work that takes to task oppressive patriarchy”.

Afia graduated with an MFA in Film Directing from Columbia University as the Dean’s Fellow. She is an alumnus of Gotham, Tribeca Film Institute, Film Independent and Berlin Talent Project Market. Her work has received support from HBO, Netflix, National Geographic, Tribeca Film Institute, Cinereach, Women in Film, CAPE, New York Foundation for the Arts, International Film Festival Rotterdam, SORFOND (Films from the South), Caucus Foundation, NYSCA + Hollywood Foreign Press Association.

Afia is a generous mentor to emerging filmmakers through several labs. She has taught Film/TV courses at: Columbia, Princeton, Tisch and Temple.