Nelufar Hedayat

Hedayat was born in Kabul, Afghanistan, and fled the country with her family during the civil war. They sought asylum in the United Kingdom when she was a child, settling in north London.^[2] She has spoken publicly about her experiences as a refugee and how they shaped her interest in journalism, and has said: "As a refugee I felt compelled to tell the stories that were surrounding me."^[3] Hedayat is of Kashmiri background.

Hedayat began her career with the BBC, presenting and reporting on current affairs documentaries for BBC Three, CBBC Newsround and Channel 4. Her early works include presenting Women, Weddings, War and Me (2010, directed by Ruhi Hamid), Music, Money & Hip Hop Honeys (2011) and Riots and Revolutions: My Arab Spring Journey (2012).^[4][5] She later reported on international documentaries such as The Children of Kabul: An Uncertain Future (2014), Vietnam's Dog Snatchers (2014) and Vaccination Wars (2015).^{[citation needed]}

In 2016, she presented The Traffickers, an eight-part investigative series for Fusion TV, Netflix and Fremantle Media, which explored global smuggling networks and won Journalist of the Year and Best Investigation at the British Asian Media Awards.^[6][7] For her work on the series, she won the 2017 Reporter/Correspondent Gracie Award (presented by the Alliance for Women in Media),^[8] and was named Journalist of the Year at the Asian Media Awards.^[9][10]

She went on to host Food Exposed with Nelufar Hedayat (2018), an environmental and food documentary series, before presenting Flash Forward (Rakuten, 2021), a science and technology docuseries.^[11][12]

From 2020 to 2025, she executive produced and hosted Generation C: Rising Up in a Changed World, a four-part series examining the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on young people.^[13][14][4]

Her subsequent work with Scripps International included producing and directing The God Thieves (2022), which investigated the illicit trade in cultural artifacts,^[15] and Plastic Time Bomb (2023), a science documentary that won the National News & Documentary Emmy Award for Outstanding Science, Technology or Environmental Coverage.^[16][17]

She also co-directed Culture’s Climate Crisis (2024), filmed across Tanzania and Alaska,^[18] and Museum on Fire (2025) for PBS and Scripps, which documented threats to UNESCO world heritage sites.^[19][20]

In 2025, she produced Binni's Blades, an observational documentary set in Birmingham, and began working as a Development Producer for Firecrest Films and Channel 4.^{[citation needed]}

• 2023 – News & Documentary Emmy Award: Plastic Time Bomb (Scripps News)^[21][22]
• 2016 – British Asian Media Awards: Journalist of the Year; Best Investigation (for The Traffickers)^[6]
• 2017 – Gracie Award, Reporter/Correspondent (Local or National TV)^[23]
• 2010 – Broadcast Digital Award: Women, Weddings, War and Me (BBC Three)^[24]