Sarmad Masud

Sarmad Masud, also known as Sam Masud, is a British filmmaker whose 2017 movie My Pure Land was the first Urdu language film nominated by the UK for a Foreign Language Oscar award.

Personal life Sarmad Masud was born in Bradford to immigrant parents from Pakistan. He grew up in Nottingham. He studied filmmaking at Hull School of Art and Design in Yorkshire.

In 2012 he moved to London. In 2013 he married Caroline Bailey, a film art director and production designer.

Career After graduation, Masud wrote and directed Adha Cup (2009), According to the Macau Daily Times, it was "the first Urdu-language drama commissioned by British broadcaster Channel 4, which was later developed into a six-part series at the BBC." One reviewer called it "a delightful comedy adventure, a sort of bilingual Bollywood Blues Brothers by way of Nottingham."

My Pure Land (2017), Masud's first feature-length film, was filmed in Pakistan. After reading a 2012 news story titled "Meet Nazo Dharejo: The toughest woman in Sindh," Masud wanted to make a movie about her armed defense of her family's land against her male relatives. The movie was filmed in Urdu rather than Sindhi. It did not, however, advance to the Academy's shortlist.

In 2017, Masud told an interviewer that he was planning two more movies to be filmed in Pakistan as well as "a feel good underdog sports film." Masud's previous television directing experience includes season two of Sky One's police drama Bulletproof and several episodes of Channel 4's comedy-drama Ackley Bridge.