Gymnasts of Fisherman Colony is a memorable look at the social dynamics facing young women in Pakistan. By depicting the challenges faced by a women’s gymnastics team, the documentary effectively shows how young people navigate family expectations, social pressures, and the pursuit of their own dreams.
As a coming-of-age documentary, Gymnasts of Fisherman Colony’s strengths lie in how candid its subjects are in speaking to the documentarian. Likewise, filmmaker Habiba Nosheen is able to capture with her lens not only the girls themselves, but also their parents and coaches.
From this emerges a holistic picture of social conditions in Pakistan. Participating in gymnastics gives the girls a chance to break free of poverty, sometimes making as much as their parents. Nevertheless, while the parents of some of the girls understand what they do and are supportive, others do not. Girls are not seen as fit to participate in sports and, in this way, having invited disrepute on themselves and their families–potentially sabotaging their chances of securing a good marriage.
Testimonies from the other characters in the film back this up. A male gym coach, for example, expresses that he was motivated to become the coach of the team because no other male coaches were willing to, but he remembered how for himself, gymnastics was a road out of poverty.
Indeed, it is through this humanistic lens that Gymnasts of Fisherman Colony works as a documentary. However, the film becomes weaker when it strays into simplistic celebratory narratives of empowerment that sometimes seem a bit distant from the complex realities navigated by its subjects. Perhaps the documentary could have sought to be more nuanced in its storytelling in these moments.
Moreover, Gymnasts does not provide a particularly strong sense of the larger social context in Pakistan, a fact that means for the characters in the movie. For example, after showing numerous glimpses of Pakistani society looking down upon gymnastics, the movie abruptly shows the Pakistani national government announcing an Olympics tournament, without grappling with the sociopolitical complexities that underlie this drastic contrast.
Nevertheless, on the whole, Gymnasts of Fisherman Colony is a strong work. Apart from the candidness of its subjects, the film is beautifully shot and visually rich. Furthermore, by following its subjects across several years, Gymnasts of Fisherman Colony is able to evoke the changes in their lives amidst socially adverse conditions.
• • •
The Gymnasts of Fisherman Colony (Urdu: مچھر کالونی کے جمناسٹ) — Pakistan, Canada, United States. Dialog in Urdu, Bengali, and English. Directed by Habiba Nosheen. Running time 1hr 32min. First released June 8, 2026 at the Tribeca Film Festival. Featuring Tahera Hasan, Anwara, Sonia, Kiran.
This article is part of Cinema Escapist’s dedicated coverage of the 2026 San Diego Asian Film Festival.
This article is also published in No Man Is An Island, an online publication focused on the connections between everyday life and politics. No Man Is An Island is brought to you by the team behind New Bloom Magazine.