Sadia Shepard

Sadia Shepard is a New York City-based writer and documentary filmmaker. Her book, The Girl from Foreign: A Memoir, is an intimate look at her family’s history that uncovers long-buried family secrets. The child of a Muslim mother from Pakistan and a Christian father from Colorado, Shepard discovered when she was thirteen years old that her beloved maternal grandmother was originally a member of the Bene Israel, a tiny Jewish community in India. After her grandmother’s death in 2001 she left New York for Bombay on a Fulbright Scholarship with the goal to try and understand the history and future of the Bene Israel, and what role her three religious traditions might play in her life. In addition to her memoir, Shepard created a documentary, In Search of the Bene Israel, which premiered at the New York Jewish Film Festival at Lincoln Center and which she often screens when she speaks.

Shepard’s writing has appeared in The Washington Post, The Times of India, Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times. She worked as a producer on The September Issue, an inside look at Vogue, and The Education of Mohammad Hussein for HBO, which was nominated for a 2014 International Documentary Association Award. Her new documentary series, The Other Half of Tomorrow, introduces us to the disparate contexts that make up Pakistan’s complex culture, covering everything from a women’s rights’ workshop in rural Punjab to an underground dance academy in Karachi.

Shepard teaches creative writing at Hunter College, documentary filmmaking at Wesleyan University, and lives with her family in New York City.