Pakistan’s women directors shine at TIFF with Ghost School and Permanent Guest
TIFF 2025 welcomes Pakistan with Seemab Gul’s haunting debut and Sana Jafri’s powerful short.
Pakistan has gone three for three at the Indian Film Festival in Los Angeles (IFFLA) with all three selections from Pakistani filmmakers receiving honorary mentions in their respective categories.
Pakistani projects displayed at IFFLA included Sarmad Khoosat’s Lali and Seemab Gul’s Ghost School, both of which bagged mentions from the grand jury in the feature film category.
Sana Jafri’s Permanent Guest was also part of the programme, scoring similar success among short films.
The dark comedy follows Zeba (Mamya Shajaffar), newly married to Sajawal (Channan Hanif), a man-child whose insecurities quickly metastasise into paranoia. Zeba enters the marriage already burdened by gossip and superstition: three previous suitors have died in strange, unsettling circumstances, earning her the reputation of a cursed bride.
The film made headlines in February as the first film at the prestigious Berlin International Film Festival made entirely by a Pakistani cast and crew.
According to its official synopsis, Lali “examines the fear, shame, and violence that lie beneath intimate relationships,” confronting the suppressed forces that suffocate many unions.
Pakistan’s second entry focused on the many schools abandoned throughout rural areas of the country due to administrative neglect.
The story is told through the eyes of 10-year-old Rabia, who defies superstition and bureaucracy to uncover why her school abruptly closed. Untangling eerie rumours, corrupt local power and silence, she undertakes a solitary and courageous search for truth and justice.
The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in September and was praised as a female story told by female filmmaker. “My themes dictate my characters,” the director said at the time, “Ghost School is a character-driven film.”
The last film, a short exploring the lingering effects of childhood sexual abuse within South Asian households, is connected to both the features it stood alongside in one way or another.
The film is set in Lahore, where 26-year-old Fatin and her mother Yasmeen are preparing for a neighbourhood wedding. Their plans are disrupted by the unexpected arrival of Shabeer, Fatin’s 70-year-old uncle. Fatin is uncomfortable with Shabeer’s visit, but her parents expect her to care for him, including driving him to his doctors’ appointments. Tensions rise during their interactions, and Fatin struggles to balance her duty to her family with the weight of an unspoken history.
Permanent Guest premiered at TIFF alongside Ghost School and Jafri — who wrote and directed it — was one of the producers for Khoosat’s earlier film Joyland. Rasti Farooq, who stars in the short, also played a role in both Lali and Joyland.