What would Spider-Man look like if his story unfolded above Karachi instead of New York? Imagine the familiar superhero moving through crowded streets, facing everyday urban challenges, and becoming part of a city with its own identity and rhythm.

That idea forms the foundation of Spider-Man – Above Karachi, an experimental AI-generated short film by Pakistani AI Filmmaker Sibghat Shaikh. The project brings a globally recognized superhero concept into a distinctly Pakistani setting, combining generative AI with cinematic storytelling.

Rather than focusing only on the technology behind AI-generated visuals, the film explores a more interesting creative question: how can a filmmaker use new tools to build a story that feels connected to a real place?

Who Is Sibghat Shaikh?

Sibghat Shaikh is a Pakistani AI Filmmaker, Film Director and Producer whose creative work spans commercial production, branded films, cinematic storytelling, and experimental AI-generated cinema. His interest lies in combining traditional filmmaking knowledge with emerging generative AI workflows.

His work in commercial directing and TVC production also reflects an interest in how visual ideas are developed and translated into screen-based stories. His perspective on this intersection is explored in his article on AI and commercial directing.

With Spider-Man – Above Karachi, Shaikh takes that creative approach into a personal film experiment, using AI video generation to explore a superhero narrative through the environment and everyday realities of Karachi.

Spider-Man – Above Karachi: An AI Film Rooted in Local Identity

The film reimagines Peter Parker as a filmmaker living in Karachi. After a spider bite changes his life, he becomes Spider-Man, with his role shifting toward protecting the city around him.

The premise moves beyond placing a familiar character against a different skyline. Karachi becomes part of the story itself. References to phone snatching, robberies, fires, and flooding connect the superhero concept with challenges associated with everyday urban life.

The contrast is central to the film’s identity: a globally recognizable character is placed within a setting shaped by Pakistani streets, atmosphere, and local experience.

The project began as a personal fan project. Its creative premise asks what superhero storytelling might look like if Karachi itself became the cinematic world rather than simply serving as a background.

In that sense, Spider-Man – Above Karachi is an exploration of local identity through generative cinema: a familiar fictional idea interpreted through a city with its own visual character.

How Generative AI Supports Cinematic Storytelling

Generative AI offers filmmakers new ways to explore visual concepts, develop environments, and create scenes that may otherwise require substantial production resources. The technology is also finding applications in professional film production, including post-production tools such as those developed by InterPositive, the AI filmmaking startup acquired by Netflix. 

In Spider-Man – Above Karachi, AI video generation supports the process of imagining a superhero within a Karachi-based cinematic setting.

According to Shaikh’s published production account, the workflow used Seedance 2 through Dreamina AI for video generation, Topaz Labs for upscaling, and CapCut for editing. Additional post-production work included glitch removal and cleanup.

These tools formed parts of a filmmaking process rather than replacing it. The project involved visual development, scene generation, iteration, editing, and refinement.

For independent creators, such workflows can make ambitious visual experimentation more accessible. However, generating individual clips is only one part of the challenge. The material still needs to work together as a sequence, support the story, and maintain a recognizable visual world.

The Creative Work Behind an AI-Generated Film

One of the project’s practical challenges was maintaining visual consistency across approximately 40 shots. Shaikh’s account also refers to around 150 generations during the workflow.

These figures illustrate an important distinction in AI filmmaking: producing a compelling image is different from building a coherent film.

Character continuity, the appearance of locations, shot selection, and editing all affect whether separate generations feel as though they belong to the same story. The filmmaker must decide which outputs serve the intended scene, which require further iteration, and how the final sequence should flow.

The production account also credits Ammar Shahid for post-production glitch cleanup.

This process places human judgment at the center of generative cinema. AI can assist with visual execution, but creative direction remains necessary to shape the material into a film with a consistent identity.

The Growing Potential of AI Filmmaking in Pakistan

For filmmakers in Pakistan, generative AI presents opportunities to experiment with visual storytelling without relying on the scale of a conventional production for every idea.

Projects such as Spider-Man – Above Karachi also raise a question about representation: what happens when familiar cinematic concepts are explored through Pakistani cities, environments, and everyday experiences?

The film offers one example of how AI video generation can support that exploration. Its significance lies not only in the use of generative tools, but in the decision to make Karachi central to the creative concept.

As AI filmmaking workflows continue to develop, the relationship between technology and local storytelling may create new possibilities for independent filmmakers and digital creators.

Human Imagination Behind Generative Cinema

Spider-Man – Above Karachi connects Sibghat Shaikh with an emerging area of filmmaking where generative AI and human creative decisions work together. The project uses AI-generated visuals to explore a superhero story, while its setting, narrative direction, continuity, and editing give the experiment its structure.

The film’s central idea is straightforward: a familiar superhero can be reimagined through a different city’s identity. Making that idea work as a coherent cinematic experience requires more than generation alone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5ql8shdBf4 

Through this experiment, Shaikh explores generative cinema not simply as a way to create images, but as another medium through which a filmmaker can interpret place, character, and story.