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Journalism of Courage
In 2020, while touring flood-affected Pakistan, filmmaker Seemab Gul encountered “ghost schools” — institutions that exist on paper but remain non-functional. When she enquired about them, locals were either unaware of their existence or preferred to ignore the issue. “In Pakistan, there are over 15,000 ghost schools and 22 million children are out of school. Female literacy rate hovers around 50 per cent. All of these facts prompted me to develop a script that examines the cracks in the education system,” says the independent British-Pakistani filmmaker whose debut feature as writer-director, ‘Ghost School’, premiered recently at the 50th Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).
Screened as part of the Discovery section, ‘Ghost School’ follows 10-year-old Rabia (Nazualiya Arsalan) as she sets out to uncover why her school suddenly shut down. Whispers that her teacher was possessed by a djinn spread like wildfire within the community weighed down by fear, misinformation and corruption. Even as the adults around Rabia remained silent, her determined quest for answers forms the crux of the gently paced and visually evocative narrative.
Gul thought of developing ‘Ghost School’ after ‘Haven of Hope’ (Panah Gah), a project she had been pitching for four years, ran into a funding hurdle. “When ‘Haven of Hope’ was postponed, I needed two things to take the plunge: confidence and finance,” says Gul, who has also produced the film. She developed ‘Ghost School’ in three months before beginning to shoot.
She started out with a Bachelors of Fine Arts. It was, however, her involvement in “anti-war activism” in London, where she recorded her friends participating in protests, that nudged her towards filmmaking. “Some of those videos were shown on TV. Eventually, I decided to study at the London Film School,” says Gul, who has been living in the UK for the last 25 years. Contrary to fine arts, which she believed to be “too esoteric, refined and elite”, cinema she hoped would help her connect with the masses.
For Gul, who has previously made short films like ‘Sandstorm’ (about a schoolgirl being blackmailed online) and the documentary ‘Zahida’ (about a widow who becomes the first female taxi driver in Pakistan), it was an easy choice to pick a young girl as the protagonist of ‘Ghost School’. “All my stories are about the female experience and told from the female perspective. It reflects my lived experience. I wanted to highlight the issue of girls’ education in Pakistan,” she says.
Having spent considerable time away from Pakistan, Gul now looks at the socio-political issues in Pakistan with an outsider’s perspective, one shaped by world cinema. “When you leave your country, you begin to notice things that those living there often miss. At the film school, I watched all kinds of cinema. Iranian cinema, particularly, had a strong influence on me for its cinematic language. My interest in journalism and documentary filmmaking often informs what I want to say,” she shares.
With Pakistani dramas thriving over the years, Gul believes the infrastructure for making independent films is already in place. “What we lack are funds,” says the writer-director, who hopes to release ‘Ghost School’ in Pakistan in the summer of 2026. Yet, she wonders if the audience is ready to embrace films that are poignant and artistic. “Life is so hard for people in Pakistan that they prefer lighthearted fare. Also, cinema halls are struggling since no Indian films are being released.” But Gul remains hopeful.
