Died 15 April 2007 | ||
Wahiduddin Ziauddin Ahmed (1916–2007) was a Pakistani film-maker.
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Career in British India
W.Z. Ahmed was born in Gujarat. He was active as a film-maker in pre-Partition India, being an established personality in the film industry in Bombay and Pune. Apart from his Shalimar Pictures in Pune, he also ran a studio in Madras. He wrote the dialogues for the 1940 movie Kumkum the Dancer. Between 1942 and 1947 he produced and directed Ek Raat (1942), Man Ki Jeet (1944), Prem Sangeet, Prithaviraj-Samyukta and Meera Bai (1947). W.Z. Ahmed's last movie produced in India, which depicted Hindu devotee Meera Bai, was met with ferocious criticism along communal lines in Filmindia whose editor Baburao Patel stated that 'Muslim "Meerabai" grossly slanders Hinduism!'.
Career in Pakistan
After Partition, Ahmed was a prominent cultural personality in Pakistan for a few years, although his cinematic career did not develop well in Pakistan. He established W.Z. Studios in Lahore.
W.Z. Ahmed made only two movies in Pakistan, Roohi and Wadah (1956). Notably Roohi was the first film to be banned in independent Pakistan. It was charged with inciting 'class hatred'. Nevertheless, the ban on Roohi was lifted in 1954.
In 1954 W.Z. Ahmed played a prominent role in campaign against imports of Indian films. He was arrested during the agitation.
W.Z. Ahmed's ninth movie, Wafa Ki Ada, was never completed nor released.
Family
His father had been a prominent police officer in Gujarat. His brothers included Z.A. Ahmed (a prominent communist politician in Uttar Pradesh) and Zafaruddin Ahmed (Deputy Inspector of Police in Karachi). W.Z. Ahmed's first wife was Safia Hidayattullah. He later married Shahida, who had acted in one of his films in Bombay.
W.Z. Ahmed is buried at Bagh-i-Rehmat graveyard in Lahore.