ISLAMABAD (GNP): A documentary chronicling the life of veteran Pakistani actor Zia Mohyeddin is headed for its international premiere at the Asian American International Film Festival in New York City, marking a milestone for a project fifteen years in the making.
The Colour of My Heart, produced by Umar Riaz and his team at Asna Pictures, will screen at the 49th edition of the festival, which runs from July 30 to August 9, with the film presented on the closing day. Riaz described the New York screening as a fitting return for the project, noting that the film first took shape as his university thesis and that its post-production work was completed in the city.
A Journey Through Poetry And Legacy
The documentary traces Mohyeddin’s final years, during which he devoted himself to reviving Urdu poetry and preserving it for future generations of South Asians. It moves between his life in the United Kingdom and Pakistan, weaving in the poetry of Faiz Ahmed Faiz as a narrative thread.
Riaz has described the film as a way of carrying a significant part of South Asian culture to new audiences abroad, and has said he is looking forward to marking the occasion with his production team in the city where the project began.
Beyond its portrait of Mohyeddin, the film functions as a tribute to a figure whose influence on Pakistan’s stage, film and television scene helped draw a new generation of South Asians back toward their literary and theatrical heritage, a legacy the documentary aims to extend to festival audiences unfamiliar with his work.
Zia’s Journey From Lahore to Global Film Festivals
The film began its theatrical run in Pakistan on February 6, and after a limited cinema release, Riaz has said he intends to bring it back to local screens this autumn. Riaz himself is a Lahore-born filmmaker and photographer with an MFA from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and a prior Student Academy Award nomination.
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His earlier work has screened at festivals including Locarno, Raindance, Woodstock, Cinequest and Urbanworld, and in 2020 he represented Pakistan at Expo Dubai with a film installation for the Pakistan Pavilion that won the Silver Award for Best Exhibition Design among 192 participating countries.
The film’s placement on the closing day of one of the longest-running Asian American film festivals in the United States gives it a prominent platform among an audience with deep ties to South Asian diaspora communities, positioning The Colour of My Heart as both a personal artistic milestone for Riaz and a rare instance of Pakistani cultural documentary work reaching an international festival circuit built around Asian American storytelling.
