Personal Life
The self-taught filmmaker was brought up on the poor and often violent estate of Longsight in Manchester. Ahmad was born and raised in a working-class family in Manchester
With no formal training and no film education or qualifications, Ahmad started off making low budget HI8 films with his friends. In 2005 he gained recognition by directing his first short film on a tiny budget of ₤2,500, Waiting For Sunrise. In his early career, Ahmad gained experience by participating in many prestigious film writing courses; these included TAPS BAFTA, The First Film Foundation, Raindance Film Festival Script development, BBC's "Writers Room" new writers initiative, and The Writers Gym M.A Writers course (London Film School & French Institute). He was also part of other film courses such as NFTS Compass Point 2009/10, a mentoring programme for minorities run by Paul Moody (NFTS) and Marc Boothe, producer of Bullet Boy (B3Media) Some of the film mentors included Oscar BAFTA Winning directors Danny Boyle, Kevin Macdonald, Penny Woolcock, Asif Kapadia and artist Steve McQueen
His role models are Stanley Kubrick, David Lean, Satyajit Ray, Terrence Malick and documentary filmmaker Peter Watkins. He won the UNICEF award in 2005 for his short documentary Waiting For Sunrise, and also was shortlisted for a Grierson Award for Best Newcomer in 2006. In 2012 his short film Boy In Tree was long listed for a (BAFTA) British Academy of Film and Television Arts
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