The Edges that Blur
Mara Ahmed
Mara Ahmed has lived and been educated in Belgium, Pakistan, and the United States. She has a Master’s degree in Business and Economics. For most of her life she worked in corporate finance. In 2004, Mara resigned from her job in order to devote herself to her true passion: art and film. Mara’s artwork was exhibited at the Kinetic Gallery in 2008 and more recently at the Colacino Gallery in Rochester, NY. The shows were multi-media fusions of her photography, collage work, and film work. Mara’s film training began at the Visual Studies Workshop in 2006, and later continued at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Mara’s first film, THE MUSLIMS I KNOW, premiered at the Dryden Theatre in 2008. It was meant to start a dialogue between American Muslims and non-Muslims. Her second film, PAKISTAN ONE ON ONE, opened at the Little Theatre in 2011. Shot entirely in Lahore, it is a broad survey of public opinion in Pakistan about issues of interest to Americans. Both films have been broadcast on PBS, shown at film festivals, and screened on college and university campuses. A THIN WALL, a documentary about the partition of India, was completed in April 2015 and has been screened in London, Dublin, Brussels, Amsterdam, Vancouver, Montreal, San Francisco, Seattle, and New York. Mara’s production company is Neelum Films. She lives in Rochester, New York.