Directed by Rodney Ascher, best known for his horror-focused documentaries Room 237 and The Nightmare, Ghost Boy approaches its subject Martin Pistorius from, at times, the same perspective of his last feature A Glitch in the Matrix: locked in an infinite loop that suggests a simulation of life. In 1988, at age twelve, Pistorius became mysteriously ill with a sore throat. His condition rapidly deteriorated, leaving him unable to walk and feed himself. His family, initially supportive as they started slumber parties with him, became overwhelmed. A seemingly normal childhood in South Africa was upended overnight and he was ultimately sent to the Alfa and Omega Special Care Centre where he was abandoned, neglected, and abused by staff.
Like A Glitch in the Matrix and Julian Schnabel’s The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Ghost Boy explores existential questions about the nature of living when one is a ghost or spectator, unable to communicate despite feeling the need to scream. Like Bauby, however, Pistorius ultimately learns to communicate and, in 2011, went on to publish his best-selling book from which this film takes its title.
With an intimate, innovative structure, the bulk of Ghost Boy is dedicated to a long interview with Pistorius in which he interacts with the filmmaker through a computer-generated voice as he types. Speaking about his early childhood, the illness that wrecked his body, and the burden of his condition on his loving family and their ultimate decision to place him in a care facility, he recounts the feeling of death and floating through life. In his state he remains fully aware, even if unable to properly communicate at first––initially he loses part of his memory, which he pieces together from family scrapbooks and home movies.
Life in the care home is cruel, staff treating their residents as subhuman. It’s only until a kind nurse, Virna, starts working at Alfa and Omega that Martin is given the tools to come out of his prison. Martin describes springing to life as Virna provides aromatherapy messages and simply talks to the residents, fostering a kind of human connection that the other practitioners did not provide. (As a teen, he was forced to watch kids’ shows, including an endless loop of Barney & Friends.) It is ultimately Virna that saves Martin as a new form of diagnosis emerges alongside new communication tools, exhibited when he’s taken in for an exam and proves he can identify symbols.
Through its recreations designed by David Offner and Jeanine Ringer, as well as extensive interviews with Martin, Ghost Boy probes philosophical questions about the nature of observing life without the tools to communicate. Ascher is a unique choice to direct the film; he does so with great sensitivity and attention to detail as Martin recounts the feeling of having all the time in the world before regaining the ability to communicate.
In the care home, Martin is alienated but observant, taking in the secrets of the staff and growing interested in what most teenage boys want: affection and intimacy from the opposite sex. Despite his limitations, he does get to experience that in spades, describing his sex ed via a computer tablet and the first time he went out on a limb and felt the most human of emotions: heartbreak.
Ghost Boy world premiered at the SXSW 2025.