As Light as Air is the title of Pakistani filmmaker Umair Bilal’s feature debut, which will world premiere on Aug. 11 in the Critics’ Weeks lineup of the 79th edition of theLocarno Film Festival in Switzerland.But things are not only light but also hypnotic in the cinematic world that the experimental documentary invites people into.
After all, it dives into spiritual life in Sehwan, Pakistan, a Sufi city “shaped by pilgrimage, folklore and collective ecstasy,” as the press notes highlight. Sufism is the major expression of mysticism in Islam.
“Every day, pilgrims, wanderers, and seekers arrive in a Sufi town carrying grief, hope, and longing,” reads a synopsis on the festival’s website. “Drawn together by music and devotion, they surrender themselves to a shared state of trance.”
Bilai also produced the film and handled cinematography together with Konstantin Stell. The editor is Siddhant Sarin, while Sui Sofie Heinz and YANT are responsible for the music.
“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,” Bilai shares in a director’s statement. “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.”
When he first arrived to film, he approached Sehwan as “an observer, trying to understand the repetitive patterns and rituals that have been followed for centuries,” the filmmaker highlights. “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.”
THR can now reveal the trailer for the film. Watch it below to get a first sense of that meditative and trance-like quality of As Light as Air.