Cannes Title ‘Joyland’ Celebrates Pakistan’s Transgender Culture

variety.com:

Naman Ramachandran Saim Sadiq’s feature debut, “Joyland,” returns to the world of erotic theater that he explored in his 2019 Venice and SXSW winner “Darling.”“Joyland” will premiere at Cannes’ Un Certain Regard strand.

The title, the first Pakistani film to be selected in Cannes, will vie for the Caméra d’Or.The tale of sexual revolution sees a patriarchal family yearn for the birth of a baby boy to continue the family line, while their youngest son secretly joins an erotic dance theater and falls for an ambitious transsexual starlet.Sadiq drew inspiration from his own family and a theater close to his home in Lahore. “I came from a very morally upright, middle-class conservative family, and to find out that this other world exists, literally like a 10-minute drive from my house, that I never knew of.

It’s so different, the world of the theater, where sexuality is not such a taboo where women can get on stage and be in such positions of power, where this is a certain form of erotica,” Sadiq says. “It’s the same people who are probably sitting at a family dinner in my house, who probably are later going in and watching those shows sometimes, and then pretending that they’re not the same person existing in both worlds.

For me, it became an interesting way of examining myself, my family and the world around me with a particular focus on gender and intimacy,” Sadiq adds.Pakistan has one of the most progressive transgender cultures in the world.