Other Work

A virtual-reality project, a book, a channel, a conference paper, and the commercial work.

Critical virtual reality. Part of my MFA thesis.

Waiting Rooms (in development)

A companion to Pay the Difference that places participants in the bureaucratic aftermath of death, where formal requirements, endless waiting, and procedural demands interrupt the ability to grieve. By limiting the participant’s agency, the work makes bureaucratic power experiential rather than merely representational: you face the delay, the uncertainty, and the constraint yourself.

An aerial render of a resort complex: towers around a lagoon pool, split by a divided road. A frame from the Beach Resort commercial. Watch the commercial

Associate creative scriptwriter, Bayut Studios, Pakistan. 2023 to 2024.

Commercial Work

I developed advertising concepts for major real-estate projects, then wrote and directed the promotional films built from them, for developments with multi-million-dollar value.

Tower 21 Beach Resort

A girl rests her chin on her hands at a window, under the title Analyzing Shoplifters in English and Japanese. A thumbnail from Analyzing Global Cinema. Watch the channel

Video essays, ongoing.

Analyzing Global Cinema

My YouTube channel of video essays and close readings of films from around the world. Where my teaching and my cinephilia meet.

Conference paper, 2025. University Film & Video Association.

Bridging Documentary & Fiction

A study of how Abbas Kiarostami blends reality and fiction in Close-up (1990), and of why the manipulation strengthens the film’s reality rather than weakening it.

Cover of the novella Benedicti and the Magia Regna: a child on a glowing blue path under a rainbow. Read about the book

Novella, 2017. Published by Daastan.

Benedicti & The Magia Regna

A five-year-old waits every night for his magic stones, which take him to a world with everything he wants except his parents. Selected among the top twenty-five submissions in a national short-story competition, and published as my first book.

Abstract

Abbas Kiarostami’s Methods of Bridging Documentary & Fiction: A Study of Close-up (1990)

University Film & Video Association conference, 2025.

The objective of this research is to study Abbas Kiarostami’s methods and techniques of blending reality and fiction in his seminal film, Close-up (1990); to gain an understanding of how through his unique methods, he created this manipulated view of reality which instead of weakening the narrative, counter intuitively, created a reinforced reality that appeared to be even stronger than its source.

The study uses content analysis as the primary research method. The research can be validated by the theoretical validation method. This research mainly stands on the content validity concept used in theoretical research.

The study finds that Kiarostami’s use of elements of the documentary film style — the visual style, interviews, use of real locations — in his narrative film Close-up (1990) give it a unique sense of realism. His distinctive method of directing actors, blurring the line between reality and fiction, and modifying the ‘real-life’ narrative into something more satisfying results in the strengthened ‘reality’ of his film Close-up (1990).

This collection of unconventional filmmaking techniques unique to Kiarostami gives us an insight into his way of masterfully bridging the two different formats of filmmaking: fiction and documentary.

To read the full paper, write to me at musawir.abrar@uconn.edu.

Waiting Rooms