Joyland: Riz Ahmed on 'groundbreaking' movie about transgender love story

Virgin Radio

21 Feb 2023, 11:22

Riz Ahmed is producing a new movie about a transgender love story in Pakistan, titled Joyland, and he thinks it’s going to be “groundbreaking”.

Speaking to Metro about what viewers can expect from the film, Ahmed said: “Joyland is the most unexpected love story you’ve ever seen.

“It’s a love story between a transgender dance-hall star and an unhappily married man in Lahore in Pakistan. But it also takes a look at how our sense of duty and tradition and our fears stand in the way of our joy and love.”

He continued: “It’s a groundbreaking film and achieved all these firsts [the first Pakistani feature film to be shortlisted for an Academy Award and the first film by a Pakistani director to win at the Cannes Film Festival]. But it’s really an emotional, crowd-pleasing movie.”

Starring Ali Junejo, Rasti Farooq and Alina Khan, Joyland follows the story of Haider, the youngest son in a traditional Pakistani family. When he takes a job as a backup dancer in a Bollywood-style burlesque, he quickly becomes infatuated with the strong-willed trans woman who runs the show.

Ahmed is serving as producer on the movie and he thinks having a trans person at the centre of the story is particularly important right now.

Speaking more about making the movie about a transgender person, the producer said: “The interesting thing is, transgender people have been a very established part of South Asian culture for centuries and centuries. And they can often hold a quite paradoxical position in the culture.

“They are visible and commonplace. It’s been like that for hundreds of years. And they almost occupy a privileged position, culturally and spiritually speaking, in that they’re thought to be able to kind of bless you or curse you, if you rub them up the wrong or right way.”

He continued that in Pakistan, there have been the option to have TG, third gender, transgender or non-binary on you ID card for many years.

Ahmed added: “Hopefully, the more different kinds of stories we can see from different parts of the world, the more it will open our minds and our hearts to different ways of doing things.”