As Light As Air
by Umair Bilal
Pakistan | 2026 | 65′ | Color
Festivals:
Locarno Film Festival (Semaine de la Critique)
About the film:
Every day, pilgrims, wanderers, and seekers arrive in a Sufi town carrying grief, hope, and longing. Drawn together by music and devotion, they surrender themselves to a shared state of trance.
Director’s Statement:
My connection to the city of Sehwan is personal. My mother followed Sufism and took me to shrines when I was a child, so returning years later carried a distant sense of familiarity. I was drawn to such places, where people gather to experience states that feel transcendental. In a world that can feel increasingly suffocating, these spaces offer something close to sanctuary, a temporary release from the weight of everyday life. I felt a kinship with the pilgrims who wander through the city; they seemed to make room for forms of freedom and collective expression that are becoming increasingly rare.
When I first arrived to film, I approached Sehwan as an observer, trying to understand the repetitive patterns and rituals that have been followed for centuries. But the space of spirituality felt beyond rationality. By spending long hours with the inhabitants of Sehwan and allowing myself to move at the town’s own rhythm, I began to let go of that need to understand everything and instead let myself feel the space. The more I surrendered, the more it revealed itself. Gradually, I became part of its rhythm.
I wanted the film to honor the spiritual life of Sehwan by keeping it open to mystery. This mystery, and the feeling I came to share with the space, is what I hope viewers can inhabit, so they too might feel something of its spiritual essence for themselves.
About the director:
Umair Bilal is a Pakistani filmmaker and educator based between Abu Dhabi and Berlin. His work explores ritual, trance and collective experience through documentary. He teaches at New York University Abu Dhabi, where he is a Lecturer of Filmmaking Practice. As Light as Air, his debut feature film, premieres in Semaine de la Critique at the 79th Locarno Film Festival.