Shareen is an award-winning filmmaker and the founder of Fort Greene Filmworks, a production company based in Brooklyn, New York and Johannesburg, South Africa.
Her latest project, Return To The USS Atlanta: Defender Of Guadalcanal, which she directed and co-produced for HWLL Overseas Media Group, had its North American premiere screening at the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival in November 2012 and is due to air on television in 2013. Breaking Out Of The Box, a documentary film about black South African lesbians, which she co-produced and shot, premiered in 2011.
Together with Lisa Henry of Left Hand Films, Shareen co-directed and co-produced the critically-acclaimed eight episode documentary series Saving Soweto for Al Jazeera English, which received a bronze medal at the 2010 New York Festivals International Television & Film Awards. They also co-directed and co-produced Forgotten Freedom Fighters, a one-hour documentary film, and The Rageh Omaar Report: The Party's Over, both for Al Jazeera English. More recently, Shareen and Lisa co-produced and co-directed These Streets Belong To Us, a one hour documentary about how three Johannesburg communities are dealing with the high levels of crime in South Africa. The film was was broadcast on Mnet's Africa Magic channel and Al Jazeera's documentary channel. They are currently producing a documentary mini series following five teenagers from an inner city Johannesburg high school that are selected to spend a year abroad at Stowe School in the UK.
Shareen's first feature-length documentary film Charents: In Search Of My Armenian Poet won the 2010 Audience Choice Award at the Pomegranate Film Festival in Toronto, Canada.
Shareen is also a freelance producer, director, and camera operator. Projects she has worked on include Prison Town U.S.A., a feature length documentary about prison expansion for the POV strand on PBS, Families: The Wonder of Toddlers, also for PBS, Beyond Blue: Mankind's Deepest Dive for RTVi, Uncle Sam Wants You!, a two-hour special for A&E that follows US Marines as they find young recruits in a low income neighborhood in Queens, New York, the award-winning Food Network specials After Midnight: New York and After Midnight: Las Vegas, and Take This Job... a thirteen part series for A&E on how Americans make a living. She was also field producer on The Sacred Truth: The Blue Hole of Dahab, which took the Gran Prix at the Belgrade International Underwater Film Festival and co-produced The Empty Tomb, a one hour documentary about the Great Pyramid, both for RTVi.
Shareen graduated from St. Petersburg State University, Russia with an MA in Russian Language and Literature in 1994, and from Washington State University with a BA in French and Russian in 1989. A California native, she has lived and worked extensively in the US, Russia, Armenia, Egypt, Israel, Cyprus, Ukraine, France, England, and South Africa. She currently lives in New York City.