Achraf Baznani

Achraf Baznani (born 1 January 1979) is a Moroccan artist, filmmaker and photographer. He was born in Marrakesh.

 Biography 
Baznani got started in photography by chance. He received a Kodak Ektra Compact 250 camera for his birthday as a teen. Baznani is self-taught and has never taken photography classes. He has made several short films and documentaries. These include "Walk" in 2006 and "The Forgotten" in 2007. "The Immigrant" in 2007 received several national and international awards.

Baznani is best known for being the first artist in the Arab world to publish a photo-book based on surreal imagery. Both books, Through My Lens and Inside My dreams, are surreal. Baznani places himself within his photographs of everyday objects, scenes and amusing situations.

His works were featured in various magazines worldwide like PicsArt, National Geographic, Mambo, Photo+, Amateur Photographer, Fotografe Melhor, Digital Photo magazine.

During 2014, he completed his "52 Project ", a personal mission which he committed to taking a picture every week in a row for a year.

 Claim of plagiarism 
Achraf Baznani had accused Heretic movie director of plagiarism, posting a side-by-side comparison of his original artwork, which was taken from the newspaper Evening Standard Charles Saatchi’s column, and the Heritic movie poster on his website.

Achraf Baznani has accused the creative team behind the upcoming horror film, "Heretic" of plagiarizing his original artwork. Baznani claims that the official poster for the film bears striking similarities to his own work, raising questions about intellectual property rights and artistic integrity.

 Awards 
Achraf Baznani has won these awards:

 Cinema 
 2006: Best Director: national educational film festival in Casablanca, Morocco. 
 2007: Best Director: national festival of the education thread in Casablanca, Morocco. 
 2008: Best Director: national festival of amateur short film Settat, Morocco.
 2008: Best Director: national festival of short film creators in Casablanca, Morocco. 
 2008: Best Director: the short film festival in Nador, Morocco. 
 2009: Best Director: national Educational Film Festival in Fes, Morocco. 
 2009: Jury Prize at the International Festival of Short and Documentary Films in Casablanca, Morocco. 
 2009: First prize in the short film festival in the Arab League.

 Photography 
 2015: Best in the show in Park Art Fair International
 2015: Merit in Sydney International Exhibition of Photography
 2015: 1st Prize in B2zone art contest in Switzerland 
 2016: Honorable mention in Park Art Fair International  
 2016: 1st Place Winner – Golden Ribbon in Notindoor photography magazine contest 
 2016: Golden Orchid Grand Prize
 2016: International Prize Colosseo, Roma, Italy 

 Artistic career 
 Exhibitions 
2024: Don't be a Square, Akka Project, Venezia, Italy 
2015 "Colour brust", PH21 Gallery, Budapest, Hungary
 2015: Park Art Fair International 2015, Triberg, Germany
 2015: Gallery Globe, Adisson, Texas, USA
 2015: Digital Private Exhibition Louvre Museum, Paris, France 
 2015: My Small World, Solo Exhibition, Marrakesh, Morocco
 2016: International Surrealism Now, Coimbra, Portugal 
 2016: Park Art Fair International 2016, Triberg, Germany 
 2016: Männer, Gräfelfing, Germany 
 2016: Inside my Dreams, Solo Exhibition, Rabat, Morocco 

 Art books 
 2014: Through my lens, Art book, .
 2014: Inside my dreams, Art book, .

 Magazine covers 
 YouAll Models magazine, Devember 2024
 Coral Avenue magazine, November 2024 
 PH magazine, Canada, issue 42, ISSN 1924-9424.
 FOTOdigital, Portugal, issue 17
 Magazine, US, issue 2, 
 PicsArt, US, issue 15
 Mambo, Spain, special edition December 2014
 One Shoot magazine, Mexico, issue 27
 Zarah magazine, US, October 2014
 Art Reveal Magazine, Issue 5, Finland, June 2015.
 Cultura Errante, Mexico, October 2015
 Artinzene, Issue 4, New Zealand, November 2015
 Knack magazine, Issue 31
 Convex Photography Magazine - February 2016, India

 Movies 
 2006: Marche 
 2007: Emigrant 
 2009: Eyes

 References 

 Other websites 

 Official site 
 IMDb 
 PH Magazine , Issue 42, pp 36–39 
 Achraf Baznani: Surreal, Inventive Digital Photographs

Category:1979 births
Category:Living people
Category:Filmmakers
Category:People from Marrakesh
Category:Moroccan writers
Category:Photographers