News / UWE Bristol
UWE filmmaker bags student BAFTA for documenting climate catastrophe in Pakistan
Nyal Mueenuddin, a recent UWE Bristol graduate, has won the prestigious 2024 Yugo BAFTA Student Award which celebrates the next generation of talented and innovative filmmakers.
Nyal won the BAFTA Student Award for his documentary, When the Floods Come which tells the stories of people living with flood and drought along the Indus valley in Pakistan.
The people of Pakistan are the victims of “a grim calculus of climate injustice”, said the UN secretary-general António Guterres, reminding the “supersized price for man-made climate change” on the country.
is needed now More than ever
On the BAFTA success, Nyal said he is “unbelievably honoured”. The Pakistani-American filmmaker and photographer completed a MA Wildlife Filmmaking course at UWE Bristol in February 2024.
Nyal Mueenuddin, who completed an MA Wildlife Filmmaking was surprised and shocked to find the lack of coverge of severe floods and droughts in Pakistan
With an educational background in environmental science and South Asian studies, he has been working on telling stories of Pakistan’s natural diversity and environmental challenges.
In the aftermath of the 2022 floods in Pakistan, Nyal said he “felt bewildered that in all the coverage of this climate disaster, displacing tens of millions and crippling countless families and communities across the country, I did not see a single personal testimony of the real people impacted by this calamity.”
Universities and colleges worldwide were invited to submit their best projects for consideration. It was no mean feat for BAFTA members as they viewed some 800 submissions from 109 schools across 37 countries, with Nyal’s documentary chosen as the overall winner from a shortlist of three.
When the Floods Come | Directed by Nyal Mueeenuddin from Nyal Mueenuddin on Vimeo.
Nyal said: “I am unbelievably honoured to have won a Student BAFTA for my documentary and I’d like to thank the team who worked alongside me on this project.
“I hoped that by tapping into the most intimate stories of the lives of Pakistanis, living in a rapidly changing world, and by sharing them as far and wide as we could, perhaps we could touch the remaining threads of humanity within the people who hold the power to make the changes needed to protect our people from an inhabitable future.”
The ceremony took place in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles on Friday, July 12.
Jacqueline Butler, dean and head of School of Arts at UWE Bristol, said: “Nyal’s film is truly extraordinary and tells an incredibly powerful story.
“To win this award amongst this talented group of global filmmakers is something he should be very proud of. It also demonstrates how our graduates from the School of Arts at UWE Bristol are shaping the future of filmmaking, nurturing talent and readying of our creative graduates to be successful in this industry. Congratulations Nyal.”
UWE Bristol’s MA in Wildlife Filmmaking, which was co-designed and is accredited by BBC Studios NHU, is immensely successful with 94 per cent of its graduates finding employment each year.
All photos: UWE Bristol
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