Melbourne Indian Film Festival awards a Pakistani film

• Joyland won the prize for Best Subcontinent Film at the Indian Film Festival of Melbourne (IFFM).
• A Yak in the Classroom, Bangladesh’s No Land’s Man, 
• Sri Lanka’s The Newspaper. In Joyland, the youngest son of a patriarchal household is expected to have a son with his bride.

The actors of Pakistani filmmaker Saim Sadiq’s Joyland earned an award at the Indian Film Festival of Melbourne (IFFM).

Joyland won the prize for Best Subcontinent Film. A film showed Sadiq and Alina Khan collecting their medal on stage.

IFFM began on August 12 and ends on August 30. Joyland competed against Bhutan’s Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom, Bangladesh’s No Land’s Man, and Sri Lanka’s The Newspaper.

In Joyland, the youngest son of a patriarchal household is expected to have a son with his bride. Instead, he joins a transgender dancing club.

The Darling actor Alina Khan shared photos from the ceremony, including one with Bollywood’s Abhishek Bachchan, and wrote, “We are so honoured and thankful that IFFM (Indian Film Festival of Melbourne) gave us the best birthday gift for Pakistan by awarding Joyland with the Best Film from the Subcontinent Award on August 14! It was a genuinely memorable night shared with many artists from across the border who welcomed us and our film. Allah!

“If I’ve witnessed a weak moment in my mother or aunt, I’ve put it in Joyland,” said filmmaker Saim. When you don’t belong to the boys’ club, you worry whether that makes you less of a guy. When you don’t like cricket or have other’masculine features,’ you doubt manhood. Why so many rules? Why stifle you needlessly? They were in the movie. Joyland explored the privileges of manhood.

Pakistan’s first Cannes submission was Joyland. Sarwat Gilani, Sania Saeed, Ali Junejo, Khan, and Rasti Farooq star.

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