I had the wonderful fortune to screen the film, A Thin Wall, while on the programming committee for the High Falls Film Festival. It was a stunningly beautiful documentary about the 1947 partition between India and Pakistan, a topic that many Americans know little about. I wanted to learn more about the film and its filmmaker, so I reached out to Rochester-based filmmaker Mara Ahmed of Neelum Films to be a guest on Conversations with Creatives.<\/p>\n
Mara tells of how, when she met co-filmmaker Surbhi Dewan at Rochester Institute of Technology, they discovered they had a shared \u201cmirror\u201d experience. Mara was born in Pakistan, but her family\u2019s roots were in India. Surbhi grew up in India, but had Pakistani ancestry. Their disenfranchisement from their family heritage was the result of the forced 1947 partition that split the two countries along lines of religion.<\/p>\n
Mara is a passionate and eloquent storyteller. She focuses her film on the people and lives changed forever as a result of the poorly-executed political chess game. A Thin Wall is a richly textured living collage. The universal themes of love and patriotism, as well as both the dark and bright sides of humanity flow through the film. They are carried on poignant interviews, captivating animations, gorgeous visuals, and a story vividly told.<\/p>\n