Documentary Filmmaker – Factual Producer - Digital Storytelling – Journalist – Photographer
Rizvi is an award-winning Pakistani Canadian broadcaster who has produced and appeared in news and current affairs content for several television and digital networks. He is the recipient of 2012 OMDC-DOC Toronto Mentorship and the Mayoral Commendation. Apart from producing documentaries and teaching broadcast journalism, Rizvi has also collaborated with non-profits over the past few years delivering compelling digital advocacy campaigns and films.
Rizvi was a popular morning show anchor in 2005 when Pakistan experienced its worst earthquake in history. He was the first journalist to reach the most inaccessible regions and produced ‘Hope Floats’, a documentary series in concert with UNDP, UNHCR and Pakistan’s security forces. He sent daily updates and live reports for the morning show and organized a massive Eid carnival for several hundred children in the survivor tent city near the epicenter, once the town of Balakot. The series shed light on the magnitude of destruction and helped in garnering international relief efforts. Upon his return, Rizvi advocated for a sustained rehabilitation effort and produced several programs to this effect.
He has anchored and produced policy altering documentaries for international non-profits and developed educational animated shorts for under privileged children. His interest in communicating issues of social justice and change to diverse publics has recently resulted in a digital storytelling project focusing on stories of women empowerment and ethno-linguistic immigration debacles. Besides serving as multi-disciplinary instructor and Jury at media events, he has initiated Participatory Journalism courses in major private universities in Pakistan.
Rizvi is a mixed media artist with the United Nations Millennium Development Goals Five Project which harnesses the power of social media to increase community engagement in the fight to improve maternal health and reach MDG Five by 2015. His work was solicited by advocacy agencies and featured as awareness content on multiple platforms in the aftermath of the 2010 Floods-dubbed as ‘the worst floods in history’ by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
Rizvi is a member of Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television, and DOC Toronto.
