Ashraf Nahlous is a Dubai-based, award-winning writer, director, and showrunner developing scripted film and television projects for regional and international markets. His work is focused on character-driven storytelling that explores power, media, crime, and moral compromise, with a strong emphasis on dialogue, institutional realism, and long-form narrative structure.He is the creator and showrunner of KINGSTON, a serialized psychological crime drama centred on a hostile takeover inside a legacy media empire. The series is designed as a premium short-form season with a continuous long-form narrative spine, developed for international streaming platforms.Ashraf’s directing work includes the award-winning short film This Is Love Too, which received Best Cinematography at the Film Society Awards (2025), Best Actor at Paramount’s We Create Drama Festival, and a Best Script nomination. The film was featured in Khaleej Times and received international festival recognition for its performance-driven storytelling and emotional precision.He made his directorial debut with Are You the Rat?, a neo-noir crime short that serves as a proof-of-concept for his feature project Yet… Another Gangster Movie. He has also developed and directed short-form narrative series, including The Dubai Tapes, produced with a 20+ person cast and crew.In addition to film and television, Ashraf has written narrative work for immersive and branded platforms, including Ocean Quest VR, an award-winning virtual reality experience commissioned by the University of Salford.Ashraf approaches projects with a strong understanding of production workflows, development strategy, and audience behaviour, and is actively developing long-form scripted series intended to be produced in the UAE and internationally.
• Scripted television development (series creation, season arcs, character engines)• Showrunning & long-form story design• Dialogue-driven writing• Short-form and mobile-first narrative formats• Directing actors for performance-focused scenes• Proof-of-concept development for features and series• Pitch materials: loglines, one-pagers, synopses, series bibles• Development-stage production planning• Experience working with regional and international collaborators• Narrative development for branded and immersive platforms (VR)