Ridwan Hassim

Ridwan Hassim is an award winning filmmaker born in Johannesburg, South Africa on 9th November 1972. He completed the Master of Screenwriting degree at the Victorian College of the Arts (The University of Melbourne) with First Class Honours in 2017 and a Graduate Certificate in Animation Directing at the Australian Film TV Radio School in 2011. He has written and directed three award winning short films through Australian government grants: Khatabah (Matchmaker) (2004), The Beach (2006), and The Child Star (2007). He is currently writing a 'Biopic' on Elvis, a thriller feature film that takes place in the Middle East revolving around the 'war on terror', and a feature film adaptation of his first short film 'Khatabah' (which he has outlined as a trilogy); with the intention to direct all of them. He is also developing a multicultural sitcom set in Sydney and a comedy webseries about an espionage agent; with the aim to be the showrunner. Ridwan has also directed 4 short and sweet ten minute theatre plays. He wrote, directed, produced 'The Job Hunter', 'Humptie de Umptie' and 'Hollywood Masala'. He won the playwright encouragement award for 'Humptie de Umptie' at Crash Test Drama, Sydney in August 2014. Ridwan's work is preserved at the National Film and Sound Archive (NFSA) in Canberra, Australia as part of the shorts collection for future generations. Ridwan won the Best Australian Short Film award for the Western Union Bollywood and Beyond short film festival at the Indian Film Festival in Melbourne in 2011 for Khatabah (Matchmaker); Bollywood director Kabir Khan, the head Judge, awarded him the trophy. The Beach (2006) short film appears as a special feature on the region 4 dvd of the doco narrative film 'The Road to Guantanamo'. Ridwan is committed to social conscience character driven storytelling. Most of his writing is derived from his life experience. He is the Father of two daughters, Yasmeena and Leyla. All of Ridwan's creative work, screenwriting, playwriting, directing and producing revolves around the singular unified theme of 'family'.