Make It Look Real

Presented in collaboration with the Penn Museum

Inside a small photo studio in Pakistan, clients urge the photographer to "make it look real" before their portraits are pasted onto stock photos with motorcycles, cars, women – anything they desire. Following a screening of his award-winning documentary Make it Look Real, photoournalist and filmmaker Danial Shah joins Jamal J. Elias, scholar of religion, art, and literature in the Islamic world, for an illuminating converation about truth, lies, and their blurred boundaries. Make it Look Real was awarded the Jury Prize - Belgian Film by Cinéma en ateliers (AAAPA) in 2025, and has screened at festivals across the globe.

Note: Danial Shah will join via Zoom.

For more information, visit: https://wolfhumanities.upenn.edu/events/make-it-look-real

Danial Shah is an independent documentary photographer and filmmaker from Pakistan, currently based in Brussels. He is interested in issues related to the human condition and the environment they interact with. Danial's work has been published in The New York Times, The Times London, The Daily Telegraph, Dawn (Pakistan), Herald (Pakistan), Express Tribune Magazine (Pakistan), The Wire (India), Scroll.in (India), Himal SouthAsian (Nepal), Dawn Urdu (Pakistan), and Trek&Mountain (UK). Danial has taught basic and advance photography and storytelling courses as visiting faculty at universities in Pakistan, including the Department of Visual Studies and Media Studies at University of Karachi, the Department of Media Studies at Institute of Business Management, Karachi (IoBM) and the Department of Visual Studies at FC College, Lahore. He holds a joint-masters degree in Documentary Film Direction from DocNomads in Portugal, Hungary and Belgium and a diploma in Documentary Film from University of California, Los Angeles. Danial is currently pursuing his artistic Ph.D at Sint Lucas School of Arts and University of Antwerp, Belgium.

Jamal J. Elias specializes in Islamic thought, literary and visual culture as well as history in Western and South Asia. His current research focuses on processes and understandings of religious community formation from the medieval to the modern world, as demonstrated in historical and literary writing as well as in visual and material culture. His most recent book, After Rumi: Language, Kinship and the Making of a Religious Community, was published by Harvard University Press in 2025. A book edited by him entitled Beyond the Rose and the Nightingale: What Makes Islamic Literature Islamic? is forthcoming from University of Pennsylvania Press. He is the author of Alef is for Allah: Childhood, Emotion and Visual Culture in Islamic Societies (2018); Aisha's Cushion: Religious Art, Perception and Practice in Islam (2012); On Wings of Diesel: Trucks, Identity and Culture in Pakistan (2011); This is Islam: From Muhammad and the Community of Believers to Islam in the Global Community (2011); Islam (1999); The Throne Carrier of God: The Life and Thought of ‘Ala’ ad-dawla as-Simnani (1995); the coauthor of Interpreting the Self: Autobiography in the Arabic Literary Tradition (2001); the editor and translator of Death Before Dying: Sufi Poems of Sultan Bahu (1998); the editor of Key Themes for the Study of Islam (2010); the coeditor of Light Upon Light: A Festschrift presented to Gerhard Böwering by His Students (2019); and the author of numerous articles. His writings have been translated into at least nine languages. Dr. Elias is Walter H. Annenberg Professor in the Humanities, Professor of Religious Studies, and the Director of the Penn Forum for Global Islamic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. He was director of Penn's Wolf Humanities Center from 2021–2025.