ISLAMABAD: Censors are lifting a ban on Pakistan’s Oscar entry, Joyland, but some scenes would be cut before the movie opens across the country, an aide to the prime minister said Wednesday.
The movie, which features a love story between a married man and a transgender woman, is Pakistan’s entry for next year’s Academy Awards and was a prizewinner at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.
Joyland tells the story of the youngest son of a patriarchal Punjabi family who falls in love with a brash transgender dancer. Their affair exposes the hypocrisy of relationships throughout a multi-generational family struggling with sexuality and the clash of tradition and modernity.
But it has caused controversy in Pakistan and state censors last week banned its showings at movie theatres, reversing a previous all-clear for release.
Although their rights are ostensibly protected by law and a landmark Supreme Court ruling designating them as a third gender, most transgender people are forced to live on the periphery of society — often resorting to begging, dancing at weddings or sex work for survival.
The ban on the screening was “almost like we take two steps back every time we make a little progress,” Kami Sid, a transgender model and activist, told AFP on Wednesday.
“I feel sad for my country, for the industry, and most of all, I feel sad for the transgender community.”
Salman Sufi, an aide to Shahbaz Sharif, told The Associated Press the decision to lift the ban was made by a committee that the prime minister had formed to evaluate the film. The board approved the film with minor cuts, he said.
“The decision is a simple yet powerful message that the government stands by freedom of speech and safeguards it, and cannot allow mere smear campaigns or disinformation to be used as choking creative freedom,” Sufi said.
He did not elaborate on which scenes would be cut.
“Transgender people are as much citizens of Pakistan as anyone else,” he said. “We have launched a hotline for their issues as well from the prime minister’s office and the prime minister is fully committed to safeguarding their rights.”
Joyland is scheduled for release in cinemas across Pakistan on Friday.
— With AFP
