Seemab Gul is the writer and director of the universally-acclaimed short film, Sandstorm, which recently qualified for Academy Awards contention after winning in categories at both the HollyShorts and Flickers’ Rhode Island International film festivals this year. The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival; follows a young Pakistani girl’s story when she is blackmailed by her virtual boyfriend after sending him a provocative video of herself dancing; and participated in, after being invited by 60 film festivals across the world. Seemab’s films ardently explore themes which include race, sexuality, existentialism and matriarchy through her own introspective lens, which is shaped by her own unique set of experiences. We discuss the origins of her passion to become a filmmaker, which led to films such as the fiction-short One Day in Whitechapel — set in the background of racially-divided London — Zahida, an Al Jazeera documentary profiling Pakistan’s first female taxi driver which won the Audience Award at the Tasveer South Asian Film Festival (whose trailer received 20M views); and The Watchmaker, which she produced. We also talked about the value of film and her experience reflecting about the Oscars.
Opening Credits: Ketsa - 03 Wind-it-Up I Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0); Ketsa - 08 Not-This-Way Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)