Berlinale 2026: Seemab Gul on Pakistan’s ‘Ghost School’ and bringing the film to India

Premiering in the Generation Kplus competition programme at the Berlinale, the British-Pakistani filmmaker’s debut feature uses magical realism to explore girls’ education, corruption, and abandoned schools in rural Pakistan

In 2022, when Britain-based Pakistani indie filmmaker Seemab Gul was covering the floods across Pakistan, she came across ‘ghost schools’ in Sindh and Balochistan. A chink in Pakistan’s armour, ‘ghost schools’ are basically either empty and hollow buildings that were never completed or are being used by local feudal lords as either barns or warehouses. Gul juxtaposes the need for education (girls’ education, especially, and forced school dropouts) with infrastructural lack, the rising numbers of empty school buildings owing to the lack of teachers, etc.

A Berlinale talent, Gul’s Ghost School, which had its world premiere last year at TIFF, now heads to the 76-year-old Berlin International Film Festival for its European premiere in the Generation Kplus (children and young adult film) competition. “Some of my favourite Iranian cinema and Romanian new wave films have come out of Berlinale. I always get inspired by the diverse and eclectic taste of the programmers,” says Gul, in whose films (Sandstorm; Ghost School), schoolgoing adolescent young girls are the protagonists. And while horror would have been the obvious genre for Ghost School, Gul veered towards magic realism.

Ghost School and Sarmad Khoosat’s Lali are the first Pakistani narrative feature films to premiere at the Berlinale ever. While Gul’s film is an international co-production making its European premiere, Khoosat’s is a fully homegrown, Pakistan-produced film, making its world premiere in the prestigious Berlinale Panorama segment, the first Pakistani film in 30 years in this section. Both films have a thematic “ghost” touch. “It’s surprising that no Pakistani feature films have played at Berlinale before, apart from one documentary. For filmmakers from countries where cinema is nearly abandoned, it means a lot to showcase our work and be seen by diverse and keen audiences and be a part of the international film community,” she says. Ghost School will have five screenings at the 76th Berlinale, which is set to take place from February 12 to 22.

Edited excerpts from an interview with Seemab Gul:

I was a part of the Berlinale Talents programme in 2019, which was a great experience. It was a supportive environment with talented young filmmakers and with masterclasses and screenings. I’ve since attended the European Film Market (EFM) at Berlinale a couple of times and found it a fruitful place to network.

Ghost School is my debut feature film, which is an exploration of the systemic corruption in rural Pakistan, where thousands of ‘ghost schools’ exist only on paper, leaving countless children without access to education. These schools remain abandoned while officials and teachers still collect salaries, perpetuating a cycle of ignorance and poverty.