Make It Look Real

“Whatever you like,” Muhammad Sakhi says, as he helps his clients piece together their fantasies. Make It Look Real takes place in a small photography studio in Pakistan, where Sakhi Photoshops his subjects into the background of their choosing: beautiful flowers, a motorcycle, with or without a girl. Many choose scenes with Kalashnikovs—“Taliban style.” Filmmaker Danial Shah turns his camera on Sakhi: “I’ll focus on you now.” As the two interview one another, Sakhi’s interest in Shah—whose life in Belgium, expensive camera, and well-paying journalism assignments—throws into sharp relief the differences in the images they capture and the lives they live. Sakhi creates two-dimensional dreams as the Hazaras genocide intensifies—Photoshop has no filter for this—and becomes more steadfast in his desire to have a different backdrop for his own life. (LK)
Preceded by short “Daily Worker"