Ghazi aur Shabnur

I am Mirza Farhan Abbas, 42. For short, Mirzaab. I lived all my early years in Karachi (Pakistan) since birth including formal education which I concluded at University of Karachi (Master in Public Administration / 2003). Later I decided to move to UK, lived there for 3 years and then finally moved to Dubai in 2007. I am currently living here with my family (wife & 2 daughters).

I have been engaged in different professions such as Banking, Surveillance & Security, Merchandising, Education etc. But I always have a passion to excel in the field of Art, Media & Entertainment. The only challenge which I faced during my stay back home was lesser opportunities and fewer platforms. Having said that, I continued to appear in Radio Pakistan (1995-97) performances and few competitions at Arts Council Karachi (1999-2000) or you can say, as and when I got the opportunity. I was avid poem, prose & story writer mainly in Urdu which I am still pursuing with greater zeal and enthusiasm. My writing was also published in local newspapers and magazines.

In addition to my formal education, I am also qualified film director from prestigious New York Film Academy, 2011. Like any other film course; the broader focus of my training was entire filmmaking process from script writing, production and post production with extensive hands-on. Our instructors mainly focused to put things into action rather than close room discussion. My lead tutor was Mr. Norman B. Schwartz who is veteran Hollywood professional and has more than 50 Hollywood classic/modern films under his belt including famous Predator, Die Hard, Total Recall, Road House etc.

Since completion from NYFA, I am constantly directing contents such as short films, documentaries, music videos. Being in Dubai, the major challenge is to arrange finances, right talent and crew. In past 4 years, we’ve seen surge of media related activities for non-locals which includes but not limited to film festivals, theatrical performances and more and more venues, across UAE but mainly Dubai. Having financial problems in producing content, I end up doing almost everything at my own such screenplay, casting, cinematography, sound and light, audio and video editing & color grading. Almost all of the content which I have produced/directed so far are zero budget and end to end one man supervision. By virtue of doing almost everything at my own, I eventually had my own but tiny studio with all basic equipment under my ownership.