The long wait is over. Today the first date on which “Allah Loves Equality: Being LGBT in Pakistan” will be screened is official. The documentary was created between November 2017 and February 2019 by the Pakistani director and activist Wajahat Abbas Kazmi, who lives in Italy since many years and in recent years became known for the campaign with the same name: Allah Loves Equality.
The film, which was realised with an online fundraising and which has the support of Il Grande Colibrì and the patronage of Amnesty International, will be presented, in the presence of the director, at the Lovers Film Festival in Turin on April 28th at 6.15 pm in the last day of the oldest LGBTQIA (lesbian, gay, transgender, queer, intersex and asexual) themed film festival of Europe.
An important premiere
Kazmi commented enthusiastically the news of the selection by the Lovers festival: “We could not have had a more important premiere in Italy and we are really grateful to the staff of the Turin festival for choosing our work. After the patronage of Amnesty, this news is the confirmation that, when you work to achieve your projects in the best way, recognition does not take long to arrive.“
Pier Cesare Notaro, president of Il Grande Colibrì, the association which supported the campaign launched by Kazmi in 2016 and which continued to support the project by promoting it through its websites, is also very satisfied: “Ever since Il Grande Colibrì was just a blog, we have always paid particular attention to the stories of people who had to combine the belonging to a sexual minority with the belonging to a religion that is generally considered intolerant.”
“For this – continues Notaro – when we met Wajahat, it was natural that our battles and our roads would have been the same. Seeing the film as a preview was a unique emotion and I am sure that it will not disappoint anyone who has supported Allah Loves Equality in these years.“
Enthusiasm in Pakistan
The news of the film’s premiere has also spread among the LGBTQIA community in Pakistan: many people wait to see Kazmi’s work and among them many of those who have told their experience in the film, in particular among the khawaja sira, the transgender community of the country.
Among the comments in the groups linked to the Pakistani LGBTQIA associations, there is a great expectation to see the documentary in the exact place where it was made, which will obviously be done, but without disclosing the projection data: the Pakistani law prohibits same-sex relationships and blasphemy and, especially because of this last rule, the people involved in the creation and screening of the film could risk their freedom.
Aloud and heartfelt
Conceived as the first chapter of a route that should lead the director to show LGBTQIA people’s life in Muslim countries, the documentary makes Pakistani homosexual and transgender people’s voice heard, without any mediation and without contrasting their voice with the voice of a state that discriminates against homosexual persons or of an official religion that blames and rejects diversity. Despite this, faith shines through and is often claimed by the documentary’s protagonists, who understand better than many imams the gifts they believe to have received from Allah.
Allah Loves Equality, which received the support of many Italian and foreign LGBTQIA organisations, as well as the fundamental contribution of hundreds of people, will be screened also at the Pigneto Film Festival in Rome on July 3rd, but many other dates are being organised even before then and the screenings will not be limited to Italy. The film was in fact shot in English, with Italian and Spanish subtitles for some screenings.
Michele Benini
©2019 Il Grande Colibrì
photo: posters
Please Don’t Use That Title for your films. It is obviously taken out of the context for fallacious content.
Thank you 🙂