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Joyland: Taboo-tackling Pakistani film makes history at Cannes

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Joyland: Taboo-tackling Pakistani film makes history at Cannes​

Director Saim Sadiq talks to Al Jazeera about his film Joyland, the first ever Pakistani entry at the Cannes Film Festival.


1653900616154.png

Director Saim Sadiq, cast member Alina Khan and producer Apoorva Guru Charan pose in Cannes [Sarah Meyssonnier/Reuters]
By
Suparna Sharma

Published On 27 May 202227 May 2022

Cannes, France Pakistani writer-director Saim Sadiq says he just kept sobbing as the premiere of his debut film, Joyland, at the Cannes International Film Festival on Tuesday received a lengthy standing ovation.
Amid all the emotion, he was not sure how long the clapping lasted.

“Somebody told me 10 minutes, somebody told me seven. I don’t know what to believe. I know that I had enough time to hug my whole team of 40 people twice,” Sadiq told Al Jazeera.

Standing ovations are a tradition at Cannes, and each minute is a measure of the audience’s love for a film. Debut films by young directors are always special, and Joyland even more so because it is the first Pakistani film to be selected as an official entry at the world’s most prestigious film festival, which ends on Saturday.

Joyland is up for two awards at the festival, including Un Certain Regard – “a certain glance” – which celebrates emerging directors and films on marginal themes.
Joyland, which tackles gender and sexuality issues that are taboo in Pakistan, stars a transgender actress, Alina Khan, as the lead.

“Joyland is sheer joy for Pakistan … There are very few moments in Pakistan’s cinematic history that we can all be proud of. I know that in 2012, when I brought the country’s first Academy Award home, the nation united in its understanding that we too can be champions of cinema,” Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, Pakistani filmmaker and two-time Oscar winner in the best documentary short category, told Al Jazeera over the phone.

“And I think Tuesday in Cannes was another such moment for Pakistan.”

Cast members and crew of Pakitsani film Joyland pose in Cannes

Director Saim Sadiq, cast members Alina Khan, Ali Junejo, Sarwat Gilani, Sania Saeed, Rasti Farooq and producers Apoorva Guru Charan and Sana Jafri pose in Cannes [Stephane Mahe/Reuters]

Pakistani cinema – which has been affected for decades by political intervention, religious commandments and bureaucratic apathy – finally having its glorious moment on the world stage was “magical”, says Sarwat Gilani, a well known Pakistani actress who stars in Joyland.
She said that the hugs and tears that flowed at the premiere during the extended ovation were not just an expression of joy, but also an acknowledgement of the struggles artists face in Pakistan.


“In our wildest dreams we could not have thought [we would be] here and represent Pakistan with a debut film,” she said.

Joyland’s journey​


Set in Lahore, Joyland tells the fictional tale of a middle-class family where a wheelchair-bound ageing but stern patriarch controls the lives of his two sons and daughters-in-law. He wants his sons to give him grandsons, but everything changes when his younger son, Haider, becomes a background dancer for a transgender dancer, Biba, played by Alina Khan, and they fall in love.


Speaking with Al Jazeera a day after his film’s preview at Cannes, Sadiq, 31, said he was still processing it all and had yet to call his parents.


He said he has long been interested in themes of “patriarchy, gender constructs and the idea of identity”. Joyland’s story was an idea that he worked on while doing his masters in fine arts at New York’s Columbia University.


That resulted in a short film, Darling. Starring Alina Khan as a struggling transgender dancer, it won the Orizzonti Award for Best Short Film at the Venice Film Festival in 2019.


Sadiq jokes that “one makes shorts only because one can’t make a feature”, and adds that a full-length feature film was always his goal.

Joyland director Director Saim Sadiq poses

Joyland’s story was an idea that Sadiq worked on while doing his masters in fine arts at New York’s Columbia University [Sarah Meyssonnier/Reuters]

Los Angeles-based Apoorva Charan, Sadiq’s friend from their days at Columbia University, and now one of Joyland’s producers, says funding was not easy to come by – although they eventually secured most of the funding from United States backers.


“I think the challenges were: first-time feature director, first-time feature producer, non-English language film with a Pakistan focus,” she told Al Jazeera.


Sadiq says Joyland’s journey has been long, but the film is “blessed”.


As well as being in the running for the Un Certain Regard prize, Joyland is also a contender for Caméra d’Or (Golden Camera), an award given to a first-time director. The results will be announced on Friday night.


If Sadiq is nervous, he does not show it.


“Whatever happens is just icing on the cake. We have a cake already,” Sadiq said with a smile.


Against the odds​


Obaid-Chinoy, who was on her way to the US for the launch of the Ms Marvel series that she has co-directed, said Pakistani filmmakers have the odds stacked against them.


“To make a film in Pakistan is to make a film on your sheer perseverance and stubbornness because the infrastructure and the ecosystem does not support cinema in this country,” she said.


Apart from funding and infrastructure, what is also lacking in Pakistan is a cinematic lineage that young filmmakers can learn from.


“Like almost every Pakistani kid,” Sadiq says he too grew up on Bollywood films, and it was only in his late teens that he discovered world cinema. He counts Iranian filmmaker Ashgar Farhadi, American director Paul Thomas Anderson, and Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Three Colours trilogy among strong influences.


“I had a relationship with almost every country’s cinema except my own because, when I was a teenager, there was no [Pakistani] cinema,” he says.


While documentaries from Pakistan on subjects such as women, honour killings, acid victims and terrorism have been celebrated at international film festivals, and at home television soaps have a massive audience, Urdu commercial cinema has long struggled.


Every few years a film emerges that draws the audiences back to cinema halls, rekindling hope that more films will follow. In 2007, it was Shoaib Mansoor’s Khuda Kay Liye. In 2011, it was again Mansoor’s Bol. In 2013, it was Farjad Nabi and Meenu Gaur’s Zinda Bhaag, which also became Pakistan’s first Oscar entry after a gap of 50 years.


However, the energy is never sustained and in Pakistan’s Urdu-speaking middle class there is little culture of going to the cinemas with family and friends. And for cinema owners, banking on Pakistani films is not smart business.


A law in Pakistan stipulates that cinema owners must give precedence to, and more than 80 percent of the screens, to Pakistani films over foreign films.


But earlier this month some filmmakers in Pakistan held a press conference to complain that cinemas were not giving screens for their new films that were released during the Eid weekend, preferring instead the Marvel Studio’s money-spinner, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.


Both Gilani and Obaid-Chinoy say that Joyland and its success at Cannes could change that – especially as a new generation of Pakistani filmmakers have studied or spent time abroad and been exposed to the possibilities that lie beyond Pakistan and the Indian subcontinent.


“To have a Pakistani film for the first time premiere at Cannes – a story that is germane to Pakistan, that is produced by Pakistanis, where the major cast and the crew come from this country, really shows the strides that this generation of filmmakers have made,” Obaid-Chinoy said. “I think that Saim’s film at Cannes is going to open the floodgates for many filmmakers who will now realise the possibility of creating films that can shine on the international stage.”


Joyland has already been acquired for a theatrical release in France, but releasing the film in Pakistan may be a challenge. Gilani, who starred in a 2020 feminist detective web series, Churails (Witches), that was banned in Pakistan, anticipates challenges, criticism and several cuts by censors if the film gets permission for a theatrical release.


But Sadiq is hopeful. Recalling how he and his team wept on Tuesday, way past the standing ovation, he said: “Everything felt more emotional, because it felt like the start of something.”



1653900888906.png

Saim Sadiq's 'JOYLAND' debuts with a perfect 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes.


'Joyland' Review: Pushing the envelope​

Joyland marks a strong debut, not just for its director Saim Sadiq but for Pakistani cinema at large at the Cannes Film Festival​


1653901204284.png

 
Last edited:
when did our liberal start making films on real issues, such as lack of education and health facilities, the growing of crisis of illiterate generation (there are 23+ million children are in out of school in Pakistan. In which, around 12 million are girls)
As well as the lack of basic health facilities, the corruption, the terrorism.
Why our liberals only portray Pakistan a bad country for women, and transgenders only, why they close their bloody eyes for other more important issues which may endanger our existence in near future
 
when did our liberal start making films on real issues, such as lack of education and health facilities, the growing of crisis of illiterate generation (there are 23+ million children are in out of school in Pakistan. In which, around 12 million are girls)
As well as the lack of basic health facilities, the corruption, the terrorism.
Why our liberals only portray Pakistan a bad country for women, and transgenders only, why they close their bloody eyes for other more important issues which may endanger our existence in near future

girls in pakistan do more fashion than girls in uk plus ride motorcycles etc. but poverty exists.
 
when did our liberal start making films on real issues, such as lack of education and health facilities, the growing of crisis of illiterate generation (there are 23+ million children are in out of school in Pakistan. In which, around 12 million are girls)
As well as the lack of basic health facilities, the corruption, the terrorism.
Why our liberals only portray Pakistan a bad country for women, and transgenders only, why they close their bloody eyes for other more important issues which may endanger our existence in near future

girls in pakistan do more fashion than girls in uk plus ride motorcycles etc. but poverty exists.

Loving the misogyny in your posts. :lol:

Why should males ride those stupid motorcyles too ?
 
they drive pojeros while we drive nissan micra here in england.

No one need drive any personal vehicle, whether in Pakistan or in England :) :
 
No one need drive any personal vehicle, whether in Pakistan or in England :) :

that wont work public trans port is sh it full of smelly ppl who dont wash and expensive.

why should i travel public transport when the same ppl who preach to us they themselves have private mansions, jets, sports cars. lets start with the elite and royals.
 

Joyland: Taboo-tackling Pakistani film makes history at Cannes​

Director Saim Sadiq talks to Al Jazeera about his film Joyland, the first ever Pakistani entry at the Cannes Film Festival.


View attachment 849195
Director Saim Sadiq, cast member Alina Khan and producer Apoorva Guru Charan pose in Cannes [Sarah Meyssonnier/Reuters]
By
Suparna Sharma

Published On 27 May 202227 May 2022

Cannes, France Pakistani writer-director Saim Sadiq says he just kept sobbing as the premiere of his debut film, Joyland, at the Cannes International Film Festival on Tuesday received a lengthy standing ovation.
Amid all the emotion, he was not sure how long the clapping lasted.

“Somebody told me 10 minutes, somebody told me seven. I don’t know what to believe. I know that I had enough time to hug my whole team of 40 people twice,” Sadiq told Al Jazeera.

Standing ovations are a tradition at Cannes, and each minute is a measure of the audience’s love for a film. Debut films by young directors are always special, and Joyland even more so because it is the first Pakistani film to be selected as an official entry at the world’s most prestigious film festival, which ends on Saturday.

Joyland is up for two awards at the festival, including Un Certain Regard – “a certain glance” – which celebrates emerging directors and films on marginal themes.
Joyland, which tackles gender and sexuality issues that are taboo in Pakistan, stars a transgender actress, Alina Khan, as the lead.

“Joyland is sheer joy for Pakistan … There are very few moments in Pakistan’s cinematic history that we can all be proud of. I know that in 2012, when I brought the country’s first Academy Award home, the nation united in its understanding that we too can be champions of cinema,” Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, Pakistani filmmaker and two-time Oscar winner in the best documentary short category, told Al Jazeera over the phone.

“And I think Tuesday in Cannes was another such moment for Pakistan.”

Cast members and crew of Pakitsani film Joyland pose in Cannes

Director Saim Sadiq, cast members Alina Khan, Ali Junejo, Sarwat Gilani, Sania Saeed, Rasti Farooq and producers Apoorva Guru Charan and Sana Jafri pose in Cannes [Stephane Mahe/Reuters]

Pakistani cinema – which has been affected for decades by political intervention, religious commandments and bureaucratic apathy – finally having its glorious moment on the world stage was “magical”, says Sarwat Gilani, a well known Pakistani actress who stars in Joyland.
She said that the hugs and tears that flowed at the premiere during the extended ovation were not just an expression of joy, but also an acknowledgement of the struggles artists face in Pakistan.


“In our wildest dreams we could not have thought [we would be] here and represent Pakistan with a debut film,” she said.

Joyland’s journey​


Set in Lahore, Joyland tells the fictional tale of a middle-class family where a wheelchair-bound ageing but stern patriarch controls the lives of his two sons and daughters-in-law. He wants his sons to give him grandsons, but everything changes when his younger son, Haider, becomes a background dancer for a transgender dancer, Biba, played by Alina Khan, and they fall in love.


Speaking with Al Jazeera a day after his film’s preview at Cannes, Sadiq, 31, said he was still processing it all and had yet to call his parents.


He said he has long been interested in themes of “patriarchy, gender constructs and the idea of identity”. Joyland’s story was an idea that he worked on while doing his masters in fine arts at New York’s Columbia University.


That resulted in a short film, Darling. Starring Alina Khan as a struggling transgender dancer, it won the Orizzonti Award for Best Short Film at the Venice Film Festival in 2019.


Sadiq jokes that “one makes shorts only because one can’t make a feature”, and adds that a full-length feature film was always his goal.

Joyland director Director Saim Sadiq poses

Joyland’s story was an idea that Sadiq worked on while doing his masters in fine arts at New York’s Columbia University [Sarah Meyssonnier/Reuters]

Los Angeles-based Apoorva Charan, Sadiq’s friend from their days at Columbia University, and now one of Joyland’s producers, says funding was not easy to come by – although they eventually secured most of the funding from United States backers.


“I think the challenges were: first-time feature director, first-time feature producer, non-English language film with a Pakistan focus,” she told Al Jazeera.


Sadiq says Joyland’s journey has been long, but the film is “blessed”.


As well as being in the running for the Un Certain Regard prize, Joyland is also a contender for Caméra d’Or (Golden Camera), an award given to a first-time director. The results will be announced on Friday night.


If Sadiq is nervous, he does not show it.


“Whatever happens is just icing on the cake. We have a cake already,” Sadiq said with a smile.


Against the odds​


Obaid-Chinoy, who was on her way to the US for the launch of the Ms Marvel series that she has co-directed, said Pakistani filmmakers have the odds stacked against them.


“To make a film in Pakistan is to make a film on your sheer perseverance and stubbornness because the infrastructure and the ecosystem does not support cinema in this country,” she said.


Apart from funding and infrastructure, what is also lacking in Pakistan is a cinematic lineage that young filmmakers can learn from.


“Like almost every Pakistani kid,” Sadiq says he too grew up on Bollywood films, and it was only in his late teens that he discovered world cinema. He counts Iranian filmmaker Ashgar Farhadi, American director Paul Thomas Anderson, and Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Three Colours trilogy among strong influences.


“I had a relationship with almost every country’s cinema except my own because, when I was a teenager, there was no [Pakistani] cinema,” he says.


While documentaries from Pakistan on subjects such as women, honour killings, acid victims and terrorism have been celebrated at international film festivals, and at home television soaps have a massive audience, Urdu commercial cinema has long struggled.


Every few years a film emerges that draws the audiences back to cinema halls, rekindling hope that more films will follow. In 2007, it was Shoaib Mansoor’s Khuda Kay Liye. In 2011, it was again Mansoor’s Bol. In 2013, it was Farjad Nabi and Meenu Gaur’s Zinda Bhaag, which also became Pakistan’s first Oscar entry after a gap of 50 years.


However, the energy is never sustained and in Pakistan’s Urdu-speaking middle class there is little culture of going to the cinemas with family and friends. And for cinema owners, banking on Pakistani films is not smart business.


A law in Pakistan stipulates that cinema owners must give precedence to, and more than 80 percent of the screens, to Pakistani films over foreign films.


But earlier this month some filmmakers in Pakistan held a press conference to complain that cinemas were not giving screens for their new films that were released during the Eid weekend, preferring instead the Marvel Studio’s money-spinner, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.


Both Gilani and Obaid-Chinoy say that Joyland and its success at Cannes could change that – especially as a new generation of Pakistani filmmakers have studied or spent time abroad and been exposed to the possibilities that lie beyond Pakistan and the Indian subcontinent.


“To have a Pakistani film for the first time premiere at Cannes – a story that is germane to Pakistan, that is produced by Pakistanis, where the major cast and the crew come from this country, really shows the strides that this generation of filmmakers have made,” Obaid-Chinoy said. “I think that Saim’s film at Cannes is going to open the floodgates for many filmmakers who will now realise the possibility of creating films that can shine on the international stage.”


Joyland has already been acquired for a theatrical release in France, but releasing the film in Pakistan may be a challenge. Gilani, who starred in a 2020 feminist detective web series, Churails (Witches), that was banned in Pakistan, anticipates challenges, criticism and several cuts by censors if the film gets permission for a theatrical release.


But Sadiq is hopeful. Recalling how he and his team wept on Tuesday, way past the standing ovation, he said: “Everything felt more emotional, because it felt like the start of something.”



View attachment 849197
Saim Sadiq's 'JOYLAND' debuts with a perfect 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes.


'Joyland' Review: Pushing the envelope​

Joyland marks a strong debut, not just for its director Saim Sadiq but for Pakistani cinema at large at the Cannes Film Festival​


View attachment 849198
Fuc*ing Fag*ots

homosexuals-everywhere-5ca67f.jpg
 
that wont work public trans port is sh it full of smelly ppl who dont wash and expensive.

They may not have the means to wash regularly or may have become careless because of becoming habituated to living in a callous, Capitalist society which doesn't teach that every citizen should be gentle and clean and the society should be harmonious but instead allows citizens to be foul-mouthed, listen to gangsta rap, do happy-slapping, do pub hopping and go about in sloppy clothes - t-shirt and low-hang jeans instead of dressing up like ladies and gentlemen. These behaviors are socio-economically allowed but good clothes are made costly and the wearers of good clothes will consider themselves elite and hop into taxis or personal cars than get onto public transport. So your daily problem of discomfort on public transport is the socio-economic system maintained by the government.


why should i travel public transport when the same ppl who preach to us they themselves have private mansions, jets, sports cars. lets start with the elite and royals.

1. I agree that the elite and the royals are at fault so firstly abolish the royalty because monarchy immediately is anti-democratic and secondly support progressive movements like the Communists and the Occupy Movement of 2011 that started in Wall Street and spread all over the Western bloc, calling for end to the irrational presence of socio-economic classes where the one percent rich have most of the society's wealth and rest 99 percent are poor, the rich able to obtain any goods and services in the world while the poor having to become indebted even to save their life in the hospital. :) So every middle class person and lower class person in the Capitalist world should call for the overthrow of the rich and claim their due socio-economic equality.

2. India, China and USA are the three biggest polluters in the world and the main reason is the perhaps 1.5 billion personal cars and two-wheelers in these countries and the lifestyle needed to obtain and maintain these needless vehicles. Most of these 1.5 billion personal vehicles are owned by the old and new middle class. If glaciers in South American mountains are melting fast it is because of these three countries. The middle class and the lower class ( those who cannot afford personal cars and so drive two-wheelers ) is mainly at fault.

3. When there are the mindless racing games though are rich companies producing those racing cars and paying expensive salary to the driver it is the mindless middle class which watches those games and provides wealth generation to the vehicle manufacturers, the drivers and staff, the product companies advertising their wares in the stadiums and on TV.


From just last year :
60caf7279733c.jpg

Lahore police have registered a case against Mufti Azizur Rehman after a harrowing video clip showing the cleric allegedly sexually assaulting one of his students was widely shared on social media, it emerged on Thursday.

The case has been registered at the North Cantt police station on the complaint of S* under Section 377 (unnatural offences) and Section 506 (punishment for criminal intimidation) of the Pakistan Penal Code.

According to the first information report (FIR) registered on June 17, a copy of which is available with Dawn.com, the victim said that he got admission to the Jamia Manzoorul Islamia in 2013.

He said that during the exams, Mufti Rehman had accused him and another student of cheating by getting someone else to sit for the exams. "Over this, I was also banned from giving exams at the Wafaqul Madaris for three years," he said in the complaint.

He said that he pleaded to Mufti Rehman, but the latter was unmoved. But Mufti Rehman said that he might be able to think of something if I engaged in sexual activities and "make him happy", the victim said, adding that he had no choice but to be subjected to sexual assault.

"Mufti Rehman claimed that the ban would be removed and that he would also pass me in the exams. But despite a passage of three years, during which I was assaulted every Friday, he did nothing and started to blackmail me more," S* said.

The victim said he complained to the madrassah's administration but they refused to believe him as Mufti Rehman was an "elder and a pious man" and instead accused him of giving a false statement.

S* said this was when he began recording the abuse and showed it to Wafaqul Madaris al Arabia nazim. "After this Mufti Rehman started threatening me with dire consequences as well as my life," he said.

He said because of audio and video recordings, the administration of the Jamia Manzoorul Islamia removed Mufti Rehman which angered the cleric. He added that he was now being threatened by Mufti Rehman and his sons and asked for action to be taken against them.

The disturbing video, which surfaced a couple of days ago, stirred up a storm on social media as citizens called for action to be taken against the JUI-F leader.

Meanwhile, Mufti Rehman — in a video message that was circulating on social media — claimed his innocence and said that the boy in the video had drugged him due to which he was not in his senses.

He said that if he was "in his senses" how could the boy have made a video using a mobile phone without him knowing. He said that this was a conspiracy to have him removed from the madrassah.

On June 3, the Jamia Manzoorul Islamia had removed Mufti Rehman. The directives, issued by Muhtasim Asadullah Farooq, said that some people from the neighbourhood had visited the madrassah and showed the video of the alleged sexual assault to the administration and to Mufti Rehman's son and asked the latter to leave.

"On the basis of their complaint, and after consulting with the administration, you have been relieved of your duties, " the letter issued by the seminary to Mufti Rehman said.

Meanwhile, Punjab Child Protection and Welfare Bureau (CPWB) Chairperson Sara Ahmed took notice of the video and contacted the victim and his parents, the CPWB said in a statement.

Ahmed termed the abuse as "extremely saddening" and assured that the victim and his family would be provided justice and complete legal cooperation.
 
They may not have the means to wash regularly or may have become careless because of becoming habituated to living in a callous, Capitalist society which doesn't teach that every citizen should be gentle and clean and the society should be harmonious but instead allows citizens to be foul-mouthed, listen to gangsta rap, do happy-slapping, do pub hopping and go about in sloppy clothes - t-shirt and low-hang jeans instead of dressing up like ladies and gentlemen. These behaviors are socio-economically allowed but good clothes are made costly and the wearers of good clothes will consider themselves elite and hop into taxis or personal cars than get onto public transport. So your daily problem of discomfort on public transport is the socio-economic system maintained by the government.




1. I agree that the elite and the royals are at fault so firstly abolish the royalty because monarchy immediately is anti-democratic and secondly support progressive movements like the Communists and the Occupy Movement of 2011 that started in Wall Street and spread all over the Western bloc, calling for end to the irrational presence of socio-economic classes where the one percent rich have most of the society's wealth and rest 99 percent are poor, the rich able to obtain any goods and services in the world while the poor having to become indebted even to save their life in the hospital. :) So every middle class person and lower class person in the Capitalist world should call for the overthrow of the rich and claim their due socio-economic equality.

2. India, China and USA are the three biggest polluters in the world and the main reason is the perhaps 1.5 billion personal cars and two-wheelers in these countries and the lifestyle needed to obtain and maintain these needless vehicles. Most of these 1.5 billion personal vehicles are owned by the old and new middle class. If glaciers in South American mountains are melting fast it is because of these three countries. The middle class and the lower class ( those who cannot afford personal cars and so drive two-wheelers ) is mainly at fault.

3. When there are the mindless racing games though are rich companies producing those racing cars and paying expensive salary to the driver it is the mindless middle class which watches those games and provides wealth generation to the vehicle manufacturers, the drivers and staff, the product companies advertising their wares in the stadiums and on TV.



From just last year :
60caf7279733c.jpg


avatar.jpg
 
when did our liberal start making films on real issues, such as lack of education and health facilities, the growing of crisis of illiterate generation (there are 23+ million children are in out of school in Pakistan. In which, around 12 million are girls)
As well as the lack of basic health facilities, the corruption, the terrorism.
Why our liberals only portray Pakistan a bad country for women, and transgenders only, why they close their bloody eyes for other more important issues which may endanger our existence in near future

Because it's the quickest way to get foreign funding. Other methods include, NGO's, Data-collection, promoting interest-based banking, promote psuedo-feminism etc.
 

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