Joyland

Joyland is the oldest amusement park in Lahore, the capital of Pakistan's Punjab province. It's a place where people like Haider and his pregnant wife Mumtaz like to forget all their worries for a while. Mumtaz is cracking under the pressure that Pakistan's patriarchal society puts on her – she has to give birth to a son – and Haider struggles with the weight of a secret: he works as a background dancer for Biba, a trans woman who performs in an exotic dance club. When Haider falls in love with her, a culture clash erupts that unsettles his conservative surroundings. The fact that Saim Sadiq mainly looks at the world of trans artists in his feature debut, which won the Queer Palm at Cannes, should come as no surprise. In 2019, the Pakistani filmmaker also portrayed the nightlife of trans dancers in his award-winning graduation film Darling.

"Saim Sadiq's unexpected trans-cis romance is conscientiously fair to everyone in its Lahore-set domestic melodrama of secrets, lies and unforeseen self-discovery, but never feels like it's hedging its bets or shying away harder truths. Tartly funny and plungingly sad in equal measure." - Variety