126 mins |
Rated
TBC
Directed by Saim Sadiq
Starring Rasti Farooq, Sarwat Gilani, Ali Junejo, Alina Khan, Salmaan Peerzada, Sohail Sameer, Sania Saeed
A married man falls for a glamorous trans dancer in this daring and emotionally intense love story from Pakistani first-time writer-director Saim Sadiq.
A patriarchal family as they yearn for the birth of a baby boy to continue the family line, while their youngest son secretly joins an erotic dance theatre and falls for an ambitious trans starlet. Their impossible love story begins to illuminates the entire family's desire for a sexual rebellion.
“Discouraged identities and taboo desires emerge tentatively into the open in Joyland, but unlike in many a coming-out drama, there’s no identified villain or oppressor – just an uncertain world in its own state of societal and generational transition. Pakistani writer-director Sadiq's confident, expressive debut feature is conscientiously fair to everyone in its Lahore-set domestic melodrama of secrets, lies and unforeseen self-discovery… Tartly funny and plungingly sad in equal measure, this is nuanced, humane queer filmmaking, more concerned with the textures and particulars of its own intimate story than with grander social statements – even if, as a tale of transgender desire in a Muslim country, its very premise makes it a boundary-breaker.” — Guy Lodge, Variety
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A married man falls for a glamorous trans dancer in this daring and emotionally intense love story from Pakistani first-time writer-director Saim Sadiq.
A patriarchal family as they yearn for the birth of a baby boy to continue the family line, while their youngest son secretly joins an erotic dance theatre and falls for an ambitious trans starlet. Their impossible love story begins to illuminates the entire family's desire for a sexual rebellion.
“Discouraged identities and taboo desires emerge tentatively into the open in Joyland, but unlike in many a coming-out drama, there’s no identified villain or oppressor – just an uncertain world in its own state of societal and generational transition. Pakistani writer-director Sadiq's confident, expressive debut feature is conscientiously fair to everyone in its Lahore-set domestic melodrama of secrets, lies and unforeseen self-discovery… Tartly funny and plungingly sad in equal measure, this is nuanced, humane queer filmmaking, more concerned with the textures and particulars of its own intimate story than with grander social statements – even if, as a tale of transgender desire in a Muslim country, its very premise makes it a boundary-breaker.” — Guy Lodge, Variety