Ian Iqbal Rashid

Ian Iqbal Rashid (born in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania) is a poet, screenwriter and filmmaker known in particular for his volumes of poetry, for the BBC TV series This Life and the feature films Touch of Pink and How She Move.

Of Indian ancestry, Rashid's family lived in colonial and post-colonial East Africa for generations. In his early childhood, his family was forced to leave Tanzania. After failing to secure asylum in the UK and US, they settled in Canada.

Rashid began his career as an arts journalist and critic and events programmer, particularly focussed on South Asian diasporic, Muslim and LGBTQ cultural work.

In the late 1980s, Rashid was a regular contributor to the Canadian LGBT magazine Rites, and the cultural journals "Fuse" and "TSAR". He published the poetry collection Black Markets, White Boyfriends and Other Acts of Elision, and made the short documentary film Bolo Bolo!. The film, part of an HIV/AIDS educational series called The AIDS Cable Project, resulted in the series being pulled from Rogers Television after complaints about sexually suggestive content, though it had a long and healthy life at film festivals.

In the early 1990s, Rashid returned to London, Britain, where he lives today with his partner, the writer and curator Peter Ride.

Touch of Pink, his first feature film, spent 12 years in development. In 2003, he finally had the chance to direct the project as a Canada-UK co-production. It premiered at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival to great acclaim, a bidding war, and eventually, a sale to Sony Picture Classics.

How She Move received a similar reception at Sundance Film Festival. Directed by Rashid in 2007, the film is set in the world of step dancing. It was nominated for a Sundance World Cinema Grand Jury Prize and purchased by Paramount Vantage. The film opened to great reviews and strong box office: another indie success story to emerge from Sundance.

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