Women Through Film Ft. Madeeha Raza

In this episode I sit down with Madeeha Raza, the filmmaker behind Women Through Film. She is the first guest on this show who is building something in the world of filmmaking, and our conversation goes straight into the parts nobody talks about: being the only woman on set, training girls so they don’t have to feel that isolation, and funding an entire film festival from her own savings.

Madeeha and I talk about what it really means to create spaces for women, and why she keeps doing it even when the room stays empty.

The only girl on the crew

Madeeha tells me that film chose her because she always wanted to do something different. Books would play out in her head as visuals. She could see the frames before she knew the terminology. But once she stepped into the industry, the difference was stark.

“When we went to remote areas for a shoot, I was the only girl in a crew full of men. I felt insecure, not as a professional but as a person.” That feeling didn’t go away. It turned into a question: why not train more girls so the next one doesn’t feel like an outsider?

That question became Women Through Film. She didn’t want a token presence. She didn’t want women to be misunderstood as wanting to make Bollywood-style glamour. “Film is a medium of expression,” she says. “It can be used to highlight problems, to educate people, to bring social change. It is not just entertainment.”

A roomful of registrations, and no one showed up

When she started conducting workshops, she did everything right. Promoted online, marketed it, got 67 registrations. The team was ready, resources lined up. Then the clock struck and nobody joined.

Ten minutes passed. Then half an hour. An hour. Still nobody. “I was sitting there questioning everything,” she says. But slowly, participants began to trickle in. That day taught her that showing up is often the hardest part for women, especially in smaller cities where access and confidence are both fragile.

She didn’t stop. Schools, universities, film festivals, she started taking the training everywhere. Some of the girls who attended those early sessions went on to start their own filmmaking careers. One small nudge can shift an entire direction.

Losing the fellowship because I said I was pregnant

A few years ago, Madeeha had a fellowship opportunity in the US. Everything was set: funding, visa appointments, contract ready. Then she shared one detail that she was pregnant.

“The next day I got an email saying sorry, the funding is gone.” She was told to reapply after the baby. No flexibility, no attempt to work around it. The message was clear: a mother does not fit into this timeline.

But she decided to go anyway. With a two-month-old, without the fellowship money, she traveled alone to a different country. Her parents supported her at every step. “My parents would drop me and I would go. I wasn’t going to give up.” That trip taught her what she is capable of when a door slams shut.

Mothering and the guilt that follows

There is a long chapter in this conversation where Madeeha gets very real about the early days of motherhood. “The bonding didn’t develop initially. I couldn’t accept that I was a mother. I was in a deeply negative space.” She describes the postpartum fog, the guilt of not feeling what she was supposed to feel.

Slowly, her child started talking, and something shifted. “When he began forming words and showing love, I fell in love. I started taking him to work. He would sit right next to me while I was shooting, or in my lap. He became my partner.”

She doesn’t sugarcoat it. Mothers are expected to be perfect, to instantly bond, to put their careers aside. Madeeha’s story says: that expectation is heavy, and you are allowed to forgive yourself for not meeting it.

A film festival funded from my own pocket

People assumed her film festival had big sponsors. The truth is far quieter.

“I funded my first film festival entirely from my own savings and freelancing income. We didn’t have any money. We did fundraising, we sold tickets, we printed our own backdrops and banners. I was so nervous.”

The event was packed. It went beautifully. But the funding struggle never really leaves. She continues to run on tight pockets, late-night planning, and a belief that these festivals must keep happening, no matter who runs them.

Why these festivals must keep happening

Pakistan has film festivals, but they are not consistent. Some happen one year and vanish the next. Madeeha insists that consistency matters, even if the scale is small. “It doesn’t have to be me doing it. Give it to someone else. But a platform must stay alive.”

She wants girls to submit their films, to see their work on a screen, to taste the craft. That experience changes the way you see your own voice. A single screening can plant a seed that grows into a creative career.

This conversation holds so much more than a biography. It holds the unglamorous, behind-the-scenes dirt of building something from scratch. It holds the exhaustion of a single mother fighting for her space, and the joy of watching a child fall in love with reading because you brought him along to every shoot.

Madeeha Raza is not just making films. She is making sure other women get to make them too, without apology.