After a dismal day locuming at Tesco, pharmacist Iqbal Mohammed sat in his car contemplating his next steps in life. It was a low point, but the 40-year-old says that moment changed everything for him. 

He made the decision to turn his lifelong love of film into penning a screenplay. He wrote something “that week” and sent it to a friend who loved it.  

“He said ‘this is amazing, someone’s go to see it’! So, I sent it to one of the biggest film screenwriting competitions, the PAGE International Screenwriting Awards.  

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“From a first draft, it became a finalist for it. I got introduced to other filmmakers, producers, went onto film sets and just fell in love with it.” 

Along the way he’s ventured into production, “trying to do everything” to get a “rounded vision” of the filmmaking process. Ironically the first film he executive produced in 2011 was called ‘The Pharmacist’. And he says meeting all walks of life through working in pharmacy has made him a better filmmaker. 

“Interacting with people from different diaspora definitely helps. Patience as well, and working in working class areas. The people themselves feel a bit more real and nothing’s fake. 

“Communicating is my forte, and that’s where the film stuff overlaps,” he adds, because he is still moving around the pharmacy sector too.  

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From managing community pharmacies to lecturing at the University of Huddersfield, he now works four days a week as an advanced practitioner at a GP surgery. 

He’s also set up a business called ‘Drugs Coach’ where he uses his Drugs in Sport certificate from the International Olympic Committee to help athletes who may not have good access to medical teams, saying “they’ve got to do their own research, the due diligence in what they’re putting into their body.” 

“Protein powders and pre-workout drinks are all unregulated. The number of stories of people banned because they didn’t know certain drugs were in pre-workout drinks."

Telling untold stories 

He’s currently dialling down the hours he can commit to pharmacy as the filming schedule for his next film, based on the Srebenica massacre of over 8,000 Bosnian Muslims, steps up.  

He will be travelling to Edinburgh in May to start making the film with the BBC, and the National Film and Television School is also supporting the project.  

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He attributes his success to “perseverance and ambition” and not thinking it’s too late to follow his passion. 

“At the age of 28, I was just cruising in life, and a message to all is that you’ve got time.  

“You can start doing something new anytime you want, and my biggest achievements are trying as many things as possible, and realising I have a passion for them. 

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“With film, it was not giving up when times were bad because there’s more bad times than good times. For anyone who’s wanting to do anything creative, that’s just the way it is, unfortunately.” 

He likes making films where “rather than taking people away from reality, I bring them to it” as well as showing “stories that are untold”.  

One of his films he directed was ‘Three Minute Warning’, a short film released in 2016 following a teenage girl caring for her disabled mother in Palestine. 

The premise sees them have three minutes to escape after they hear an Israeli “knock-on-the-roof” bomb that warns them their building is about to be bombed.  

“We live in a bubble and don’t really know what’s going on in the world, so I like to open people’s minds to certain situations in life. I try to make it relatable and have characters that people fall in love with. Everyone’s got a story, and I love to delve into something I don’t know as well. 

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“In ‘Three Minute Warning’, it was never about taking a side, but about the most vulnerable, innocent people. I’m not the type of filmmaker that shoves something down your throat. It’s sort of ‘this is what is going on, now go away and do your own research on what you believe. Is this right? Is this wrong?’ 

“When you put a mother and daughter in that situation, we can all relate to that, because making decisions like that shouldn’t be what a child should be doing.  

“The film has never lost its relevance in the last 10 years of it being made.”