Part of the surprise stemmed from the discovery by many at Cannes that Pakistan is one the first nations to have given legal protection against discrimination to transgender people. Joyland left Cannes audiences slack-jawed and admiring and got a standing ovation from the opening night's crowd. Joyland beat off several other strong entries, including Close by Belgian director Lukas Dhont and Tchaikovsky's Wife by Kirill Serebrennikov, both hot contenders for the Cannes Festival's top award Palme d'Or which will be announced on Saturday.
Past winners of the prize, created in 2010 by critic Franck Finance-Madureira, include Todd Haynes for Carol and Xavier Dolan for Laurence Anyways. "It makes me sad that the festival is still cold-shouldering the Queer Palm," Corsini said. Not so at Cannes, where the festival's leadership won't even allow the "Queer Palm" - which has been running for a decade - to set up shop in its main building, the Palais du Festival.
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The "Queer Palm" has been won by big-name directors in the past and attracted top talent to its juries, but has has no official place at the world's top film festival.Īwards for films with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer content are already an integral part of other major movie gatherings, including Berlin which has handed out its "Teddy Award" since 1987, and made it part of its official programme. "It has strong characters who are both complex and real.
" Joyland will echo across the world," Corsini said. "It's a very powerful film, that represents everything that we stand for," jury head, French director Catherine Corsini, told AFP.Ĭorsini herself took the award last year with La Fracture which features a lesbian couple's relationship against the backdrop of the "Yellow Vest" movement. It is the first-ever Pakistani competitive entry at the Cannes festival where it is part of the "Un Certain Regard" segment that focuses on young, innovative cinema talent. Joyland by director Saim Sadiq, a tale of sexual revolution, tells the story of the youngest son in a patriarchal family who is expected to produce a baby boy with his wife but joins an erotic dance theatre and falls for the troupe's director, a trans woman. A Pakistani movie featuring a daring portrait of a transgender dancer in the Muslim country on Friday won the Cannes "Queer Palm" prize for best LGBT, "queer" or feminist-themed movie, the jury head told AFP.