Zulfiya Hamzaki is a documentary filmmaker and postgraduate researcher at the University of York’s School of Arts and Creative Technologies. She led the research for an XR-Stories funded interactive documentary project "Your Heritage, Your Story" with the Council for British Archaeology (CBA), looking at how digital storytelling can help achieve inclusivity in archaeology through a practice-based, co-creative project with immigrants in the UK. She has presented this work at the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists (CIfA) conference in Nottingham, at the Digital Creativity, Industry and Culture (DCIC) conference at the University of York, and at Linnaeus University Sweden, among others. The project was featured at the 2023 York Festival of Ideas.
Zulfiya’s independent films have explored women in sport, immigration in the United States, native American issues, Silicon Valley’s dating culture and refugee resettlement in California’s Bay area. Her previous experience includes working with non-profit organisations on video projects relating to gender, sexuality, rural journalism, disability, education, environment and social design.
Her films have been picked up by global streaming platforms such as True Story, a UK-based documentary streaming platform, and Means TV, a US-based, world’s first worker-owned streaming service. Her films have screened on cable TV in Multnomah county, Oregon, at the Palm Springs International Film Festival, San Diego Asian Film Festival, Seattle Asian American Film Festival, NewFilmmakers Los Angeles and the 14th IAWRT Asian Women’s Film Festival (New Delhi). Her audio-visual project on women bodybuilders in India has been recognized by the International Association of Women in Radio & Television (IAWRT).
She is currently in receipt of the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) funding through the White Rose College of the Arts & Humanities (WRoCAH) to pursue doctoral research at the University of York. Previously, she received the Vinod Saryu Doshi Post Graduate Fellowship in Liberal Arts and Sciences and holds an MFA in Documentary Film and Video Production from Stanford University, USA.
zulfi14[a]gmail.com