Pakistani cinema might be having a hard time finding its footing domestically, but its documentary scene is telling some of the most compelling stories out there—and the world is noticing. Take Haven of Hope, a project by the London-based filmmaker Seemab Gul. The film has just been selected for the Red Sea Souk’s Project Market, a prestigious platform spotlighting new works from directors across the Arab, African, and Asian regions. The film is due to release in 2025.
Haven of Hope is a fictional narrative with roots planted firmly in reality. Inspired by Gul’s time working with the Edhi Foundation, it follows the lives of three women abandoned by their families in a psychiatric asylum. It’s an unflinching exploration of mental health and the stigma that leaves so many marginalized people to fend for themselves, particularly in Pakistan. Gul’s style—a blend of documentary, fiction, and performative storytelling—imbues the project with an emotional depth that lingers.
This isn’t her first brush with international attention. Back in 2022, Haven of Hope was selected for La Fabrique Cinéma at Cannes, a program designed to nurture emerging filmmakers. And Gul has been steadily building a body of work that’s as incisive as it is empathetic. Her earlier film, Zahida with Al Jazeera offered an intimate portrait of Pakistan’s first female taxi driver—a woman navigating a society that isn’t exactly rooting for her success. Then there’s Sandstorm (Mulaqat), her short film about a teenager caught in an online blackmail nightmare, which earned a nomination for Best British Short Film at BIFA in 2021. Gul has a knack for zooming in on the undercurrents of power and vulnerability in her subjects’ lives, bringing hidden struggles to the surface.
And she’s not alone. Filmmakers like Bassam Tariq and Omar Mullick have also been making waves with projects like These Birds Walk, a 2016 documentary that’s as tender as it is raw. The film traces the work of Abdul Sattar Edhi—the legendary humanitarian—through the eyes of a runaway boy, an ambulance driver, and Edhi himself. It’s an evocative portrait of an institution that remains one of Pakistan’s few moral anchors.
What’s striking about these films isn’t just their content but their audacity. They’re tackling issues that are often swept under the rug—mental health, gender inequality, societal neglect—and doing so with an immediacy that’s hard to ignore. While mainstream Pakistani cinema remains preoccupied with formulaic love stories, the documentary scene is carving out space for stories that feel urgent and alive.
Seemab Gul is writing her second feature commissioned by Film4.
