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Pakistan’s Oscar entry film ‘Joyland’ gets banned over ‘highly objectionable material’; director requests fans to support him. Pakistan’s first-ever Oscar entry film ‘Joyland’ has been reportedly banned by the country’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting because it allegedly contained ‘highly objectionable material’. The Ministry, in its order, stated that the film didn't match the country's ‘social values and moral standards’ and will be banned to avoid backlash from conservative elements of the country. Soon after the news broke, the film’s director took to social media and requested his fans to join them in the mission to release his film. ‘Joyland’ is about a family who wants to have a baby boy to continue the family line and the youngest son of the family joins an erotic dance theatre secretly. However, the boy falls for a transgender later.
The globally acclaimed and multiple award-winning Joyland, is the latest victim of the ban policies of the country of its origin. Directed by Saim Sadiq, the film was set to have a commercial release in Pakistan on November 18 after receiving clearance from the federal and two provincial censorship boards, until came the Federal Ministry for Information and Broadcasting’s bombshell: Joyland is banned.
On my timeline, tweet after tweet condemning the ban on Joyland, it was as if Pakistan was fighting the institutional and societal unacceptability of the other. The sane and enlightened voices may not be many and loud enough to pierce the rigidity of the so-called rule makers. But it shows a Pakistan backstepping, gingerly, from the norms that further hurt those who are marginalised, judged, persecuted, and penalized all their lives.
Struck by the backlash Joyland has received and to discover the reality of it amidst the blind furore that has erupted, I got in touch with Rasti Farooq, who plays Mumtaz, one of the principal characters of Joyland. Rasti is a Lahore-based actor, writer and producer who has starred in several short films and theatre productions and has also co-written and produced award winning animated short films Swipe and Shehr-e-Tabassum.
Joyland is a fictionalised story like any other film. The way Saim [director] has described it at film festivals, it is a collection of his observations growing up in Pakistan his whole life-things that he observed in his family, his circle of friends. How we treat one another, our biases, how we love, how we sometimes choose to give into fear.
For me, the story gently asks you to reflect upon our thinking, what we perceive to be our cultural norms that are often very stifling, limitations and impositions that we make on people around us-whether that’s men or women or people from vulnerable groups in Pakistan. “Joyland” asks you to look at the cost of that on individual lives and our collective humanity.
Joyland was completed in six years. Saim started writing it six years ago. He wrote many drafts. In his mind, he was trying to write the most honest story about us and our people. He was also trying to write the most empathetic story that he could.
We started shooting last year in October, and the shoot took about two and a half months. About six months later, we found out that Joyland had been selected in the Cannes Film Festival. It was incredibly exciting as it all happened very quickly. Once we found out about Cannes, we had about three weeks to finish colouring and editing. We did that as quickly as possible so that we could submit the final cut to Cannes.