DIRECTORS

Mara Ahmed is an interdisciplinary artist and activist filmmaker based on Long Island, New York. She was born in Lahore and educated in Belgium, Pakistan, and the US. Mara’s work aims to trespass political, linguistic, and geographic borders and challenges colonial binaries. She has directed and produced three films, including The Muslims I Know (2008), Pakistan One on One (2011), and A Thin Wall (2015). Her films have been broadcast on PBS and screened at international film festivals. A Thin Wall was acquired by MUBI India in 2020 and was available to watch on Amazon Prime from 2017-23. She is now working on The Injured Body, a film about racism in America that focuses exclusively on the voices of women of color. Mara’s artwork has been exhibited at galleries in New York and California. Her multimedia installation The Warp & Weft [Face to Face], based on an archive of stories she curated in 2020, was exhibited at Rochester Contemporary Art Center in April 2022 and her experimental short film Le Mot Juste [Part One] was selected for a juried exhibition organized by Chicago’s South Asia Institute in 2021. Mara was recently awarded a NYSCA grant for her film/art project, Return to Sender: Women of color in colonial postcards and the politics of representation. The film will premiere on Oct 1st, 2023 at Cinema Arts Centre in Huntington, NY. Her websites are www.NeelumFilms.com and www.MaraAhmedStudio.com