Zola Studios was founded by Basma Khalifa after a desire to bring cross-cultural stories to life and a recognition that working in community to build community was the key to success.
Grown as a powerful, experienced, multi- hyphenate, third-culture creative who has been working for a decade across disciplines, ZOLA is particularly interested in stories from the global majority including the Africa, South West Asia and the middle east.
“We believe that it's important to own your narrative and to be empowered to create from an authentic place; that honest storytelling facilitates community-building and cross-cultural understanding. With an obvious gap of stories in the market from North Africa, The Gulf and South West Asia - despite there being over 2 billion people from the region and many more in the diaspora - we have turned our attention to facilitating opportunities for ourselves and others to tell these stories.”
At Zola studios, we are excited to tell these stories across mediums, and build a community of like-minded creatives, keen to learn, teach and connect from across the globe.
It's time to take back our narratives, one story at a time.
ZOLA xo
Meet the founder
Basma Khalifa
Basma Khalifa is Saudi Arabia born, Irish/Scottish raised and Sudanese by birth director, filmmaker and writer. Basma has worked in the fashion industry for over 10 years as a Stylist at some of the world’s biggest magazines before turning to film making. Her debut documentary, aired on BBC1 in 2018. The film earned her a nomination for "Newcomer of the Year" at the Edinburgh TV Festival. Basma has contributed to major platforms such as the BBC, ITN, and Channel 4, building a reputation for centring underrepresented voices with nuance and depth. As a director, she has created films for brands including Meta, Apple, and Netflix. Basma is currently working on her debut self shot documentary and her first scripted series as well as multiple shorts.