Amman Abbasi

His later work includes Yasmeen’s Element (2024), the score for The Exorcist: Believer (2023), and co-producing the 2026 Academy Award-nominated documentary short Armed Only with a Camera: The Life and Death of Brent Renaud.

• Name — Amman Abbasi • Occupation — * Film director • composer • editor • Years Active — 2009–present • Relatives — Yousuf Abbasi (brother)

Abbasi grew up in Paragould and Jonesboro before his family moved to Little Rock when he was nine; he attended Hall High School and completed his senior year at Little Rock Central High School. He has cited the Dardenne brothers and Martin Scorsese as principal influences on his filmmaking.

Abbasi began his career in documentary filmmaking after dropping out of college. While in high school he met the documentarians Brent and Craig Renaud and worked with them as a cameraman on projects including their Chicago gang-violence documentary. In 2011 he travelled to Haiti for The New York Times to cover the aftermath of the 2010 Haiti earthquake; the resulting short documentary received an Alfred I. duPont–Columbia Award. He served as editor on the Renaud Brothers' series Last Chance High (2015), which was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for outstanding editing. He also worked as director's assistant to David Gordon Green on Manglehorn (2014) and Our Brand Is Crisis (2015). In 2021, Abbasi directed Udaan, a short documentary commissioned as part of the Hindsight Project that follows Baneen Khan, a young woman from Karachi who relocates to rural Arkansas to begin studies at Black River Technical College. Udaan premiered at AFI Docs in 2022. In 2026, Abbasi served as co-producer on Armed Only with a Camera: The Life and Death of Brent Renaud, which was nominated for Best Documentary Short Film at the 2026 Academy Awards.

Abbasi's first credited score was for the 2009 documentary Warrior Champions: From Baghdad to Beijing. He has scored both his own features, Dayveon and Yasmeen's Element, and his compositions have been used in films including The Wall (2010), Tragedy (2015), Shelter (2016) and Meth Storm (2017). He served as music consultant on the Halloween film franchise, working on Halloween (2018) and Halloween Kills (2021). In 2023, Abbasi co-composed the score for The Exorcist: Believer with David Wingo; the score received a nomination for Best Original Score in a Horror Film at the 14th Hollywood Music in Media Awards.

• Year — Title — Director — Composer — Editor — Notes • 2009 — Warrior Champions: From Baghdad to Beijing — Documentary • 2014 — Manglehorn — Director's assistant • 2015 — Our Brand Is Crisis — Director's assistant • 2015 — Last Chance High — Documentary series; Emmy nomination • 2017 — Dayveon — Two Independent Spirit Award nominations • 2018 — Halloween — Music consultant • 2021 — Halloween Kills — Music consultant • 2021 — Udaan — Short documentary • 2023 — The Exorcist: Believer — Co-composer with David Wingo • 2024 — Yasmeen's Element — Feature