'Surfers Of Bulleji': Help Fund A Documentary On A Grassroots Surf Culture In Pakistan

The documentary is now in pre-production and Shahbano is raising donations to ship essential surfing gear to Pakistan and cover post production costs of the film.

Surfers Of BullejiShahbano Farid

Published on:

19 Aug 2025, 4:00 pm

2 min read

Across the world’s coastlines, surfing has grown into a culture of its own, at the intersection ofathleticism and a deep bond to the sea. In Pakistan, however, the sport remains unrecognised, and non-existent — except on the shores of Bulleji, a fishing village outside Karachi, where a quiet surf community is beginning to take shape.

Leading it is Attiq Rehman, a 21-year-old son of a fisherman, whose earliest lessons in surfing came on patched-together boards he and his peers fashioned from reclaimed debris and salvaged scraps. With no official recognition of surfing in Pakistan, Attiq still leads more than fifty local youth from neighbouring fishing villages in a grassroots surf club that share only about fifteen boards among them.

Their story is now being told in a short documentary called 'Surfers of Bulleji' by Shahbano Farid, a Pakistani-American filmmaker who brings a considered, deeply human eye to the project. Born in Karachi, she has devoted her work to intimate portraits of overlooked lives in her homeland.

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Her short doc 'Karachi at Night' (2024) was a glimpse into the DIY roots of Pakistan's nightlife culture, and explored how local artists overcome cultural and structural obstacles to push electronic music in the metropolis. She also wrote and directed Arijah Haseeb’s cricket-focused episode for 'By Her Rules', a 2020 docu-series produced by the International Olympic Committee. When she met Attiq in 2024, she recognized a story that needed both care and craft. It was about a young man leading change with hands raw from labour, yet still tender in spirit.

With executive producers Dan Bradley and Adam Fahy-Majeed, the documentary is now in pre-production and Shahbano is raising donations to ship essential surfing gear to Pakistan and cover the post production costs of the film.

There is something audacious about the this story and its telling. In the resilience and passion of a young man from a fishing lineage refusing to let his background confine him, a community improvising its tools, and a filmmaker dedicating her skill and heart to their narrative, the story of Surfers of Bulleji is a testament to how the smallest waves of imagination and the grit to make it happen, can ripple outward.

Follow Shahbano here, donate to the documentary here and watch its trailer below: