Joyland

I wanted to record here going to watch Joyland with E at The Light, screened for the Leeds International Film Festival. You never know quite what you're going to get at LIFF but I was reasonably confident that this would be good, and so it turned out. It was wonderful: funny and sad, surreal and authentic, with many fantastic little vignettes from daily life in Lahore. It would be a tragedy if this didn't get a general release. Look out for it. There was so much to love out about this. It was never too much in your face, never too obvious, just a beautifully filmed and nuanced story.

From the program ...

Winner of the Un Certain Regard Jury Prize and Queer Palm at the Cannes Film Festival, Saim Sadiq’s dazzling debut feature is a bittersweet tale of repressed desire and the quest for individual freedom. Unassuming Haider Rana, has a seemingly happy arranged marriage and an ordered family life, living under the same roof as the rest of the Rana clan and his strict patriarchal father. When Haider secretly becomes a backing dancer for an erotic dance cabaret and falls for glamourous trans starlet Biba, family ties begin to strain.


PS  Thanks for all the bank advice and the love for the shot over the Eden Valley. For this next week, I'm likely only to be able to pay you back with film recommendations - and perhaps avoidance notices too!