{"id":28409,"date":"2024-06-20T00:00:22","date_gmt":"2024-06-20T07:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/?post_type=films&#038;p=28409"},"modified":"2025-05-19T10:44:51","modified_gmt":"2025-05-19T17:44:51","slug":"when-i-close-my-eyes","status":"publish","type":"films","link":"https:\/\/dipsy.pbs.org\/independentlens\/documentaries\/when-i-close-my-eyes\/","title":{"rendered":"When I Close My Eyes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">His ability to paint portraits of Saddam Hussein likely saved his life. Oil painter Samir Khurshid reflects on his own tumultuous life growing up surrounded by death and chaos in war-torn Iraq. His densely layered work is heavily influenced by both the cross-cultural chaos of life as a refugee in the U.S. as well as his past, modern religion, ancient mythology, politics, and daily emotional life.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>His ability to paint portraits of Saddam Hussein likely saved his life. Oil painter Samir Khurshid reflects on his own tumultuous life growing up surrounded by death and chaos in war-torn Iraq. His densely layered work is heavily influenced by both the cross-cultural chaos of life as a refugee in the U.S. as well as [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":29024,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"topic":[1265,1239,1220,1264,1252],"class_list":["post-28409","films","type-films","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","topic-faith","topic-identity","topic-immigration","topic-race-ethnicity","topic-visual-arts"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>When I Close My Eyes | Short Film | Independent Lens | PBS<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Oil painter Samir Khurshid&#039;s densely layered work captures the dichotomies prevalent in his experiences as refugee.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/dipsy.pbs.org\/independentlens\/documentaries\/when-i-close-my-eyes\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"When I Close My Eyes | Short Film | Independent Lens | PBS\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Oil painter Samir Khurshid&#039;s densely layered work captures the dichotomies prevalent in his experiences as refugee.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/dipsy.pbs.org\/independentlens\/documentaries\/when-i-close-my-eyes\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Independent Lens\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-05-19T17:44:51+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/dipsy.pbs.org\/independentlens\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/When-I-close-my-eyes-sig-image-1280x720-1.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1280\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dipsy.pbs.org\/independentlens\/documentaries\/when-i-close-my-eyes\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dipsy.pbs.org\/independentlens\/documentaries\/when-i-close-my-eyes\/\",\"name\":\"When I Close My Eyes | Short Film | Independent Lens | PBS\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dipsy.pbs.org\/independentlens\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dipsy.pbs.org\/independentlens\/documentaries\/when-i-close-my-eyes\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dipsy.pbs.org\/independentlens\/documentaries\/when-i-close-my-eyes\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/dipsy.pbs.org\/independentlens\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/When-I-close-my-eyes-sig-image-1280x720-1.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2024-06-20T07:00:22+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-05-19T17:44:51+00:00\",\"description\":\"Oil painter Samir Khurshid's densely layered work captures the dichotomies prevalent in his experiences as refugee.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dipsy.pbs.org\/independentlens\/documentaries\/when-i-close-my-eyes\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/dipsy.pbs.org\/independentlens\/documentaries\/when-i-close-my-eyes\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dipsy.pbs.org\/independentlens\/documentaries\/when-i-close-my-eyes\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dipsy.pbs.org\/independentlens\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/When-I-close-my-eyes-sig-image-1280x720-1.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/dipsy.pbs.org\/independentlens\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/When-I-close-my-eyes-sig-image-1280x720-1.jpg\",\"width\":1280,\"height\":720,\"caption\":\"A man wears an American flag wrapped around his head and face with only his eyes showing. 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