During the Iranian Revolution, Avini started his artistic career as a director of documentary films, and is considered a prominent war filmmaker.

According to Agnes Devictor, Avini invented original cinematography methods, depicting the esoteric side of the Iran–Iraq War in terms of Shia mystical thought.

Most of his work was devoted to reflecting on how bassijis, a paramilitary volunteer militia within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, perceived the war and their role in it.

He tried to maintain realism by minimizing the use of cinematic effects, and worked to avoid depicting the habits that combatants had adopted when they were being filmed.

Avini rarely filmed major victories and was hardly interested in strategy or military issues; his documentaries were almost exclusively devoted to how volunteers (bassijis) viewed the conflict[6] and their participation in it.

[12] Ravayat-e Fath (Narration of Victory) was a "lifelong" documentary of the Iran–Iraq War which focused on the daily life of Iranian soldiers.

[3] He wrote a series of articles in Sureh magazine critiquing Western civilization, a subject which was later the focus of his film Sarab (Mirage).

[3] According to Devictor, Avini was an intellectual and theorist who worked on reconciling the Iranian Islamic regime with political and aesthetic modernity.

[6] Avini's work had similarities to that of 19th century thinkers in the Muslim world who felt it was necessary to employ Western political, economic, or cultural techniques in the service of spiritual art.

[13] At a conference at the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, he said that Western art was a container that could accept any content, and that it was possible to insert religious thought without changing or betraying it.

[6] Avini was killed by shrapnel from a landmine explosion in Fakkeh, in northwest Khuzestan Province, on 9 April 1993, while producing a documentary.