RIZWAN AARIF

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RIZWAN AARIF

School drop-out but a BBC Certified Cinematographer by the age 21!

Meet 21-year-old Rizwan Aarif who has got a life story by this young age which would inspire the youth. He is a BBC certified cinematographer working with BBC now pursuing film production from the University Of Central Lancashire, United Kingdom. He has also backpacked & hitchhiked over 40 + countries. For Rizwan, it’s all about chasing his dreams! Born to Muhammed Najeeb & Shaibana .P, Kerala born Rizwan spent most of his life with his family in Saudi Arabia & Qatar. He never wanted to fall in the South India Cultural flow of Engineering and Medicine which made his go into Commerce Stream for his Grade XI. He always wanted to do something different away from what normal people would do. His parents were not very happy with his decision and were totally upset. But Rizwan could not find anything unique even with subjects taught in Commerce which eventually became boring for him and he finally ended up failing Grade XI. His mother took that as an opportunity to make him understand he is not fit for commerce and somehow compelled him to join Science for the next academic year – to which finally he had to agree. Rizwan agreed to his mother because of the thought that he could continue with his passion for photography for some months until the next academic year commences. Fortunately, during those few months, he met a lot of creative people from whom he started learning different things.

During this time, a competition by Doha Film Institute caught his attention. He along with some of his friends decided to participate in that 72-hour filmmaking challenge. To his surprise, they won the Best Film Award from 50 entries. That was when he decided to not let go off his passion and decided to talk on his future with his parents. Since his parents were concerned about his future, they said a big NO to his Dreams and Passion. The next academic year, his parents put him into a Mechanical Engineering Diploma in India since he did not want to continue in school. That was where he started meeting random people who shared the same interest of his rather than going to class. He liked wandering around meeting people and learning different cultures than sitting in the class. As obvious he failed the Semester Exams too which made him quit that too. He then joined a Certification Course in Cinematography with whatever little savings he had. For almost a year and a half, he worked in India as a freelancer in various media fields. By this time all his Family, Relatives and Friends started making fun of him saying he is good for nothing and he is a failure. While these hard times of his life, he always had a dream of doing films in the UK but the major villain there was Money. He randomly applied to various universities for scholarships. This went on for quite some time. To his surprise, he got a scholarship from the University Of Central Lancashire in the United Kingdom. It was at the age 20 this school and college dropout reached his dream destination. From then he had his hard works and determination getting paid off. 

His Achievements includes being certified as a cinematographer by BBC, Signed up a feature film project with an Italian Film Studio, Travelled 40+ countries & solo hitchhiking Europe and many more. Adding a Golden feather to his hat this school and college drop out, who was once a failure for his Family & Friends is now invited to talk on TEDx LONDON at the age of 21 on how to customize a productive education! His advice for the youth of tomorrow – “Dare to dream and chase your Passion because it can do wonders and never fear about failures. Success and Failure are like sometimes you win, sometimes you learn, so always it better to fail than succeed.”

His life shows us that if you never try something out of the box, you will never know the fun. Never crumble if you wish to go miles!