Cannes Film Festival 2022: Joyland becomes first-ever Pakistani movie to be screened at event

This year, Joyland is the first Pakistani movie to make it to Cannes Film Festival's Official Selection and will be screened in the Un Certain Regard category. 

The movie revolves around a patriarchal joint family who yearns for a baby boy to carry forward their lineage, while their youngest son has a secret life as a member of an erotic dance group. He falls in love with a transsexual starlet sparking a desire for sexual rebellion within the entire family.

Joyland is directed by debutant Saim Sadiq and stars Ali Junejo, Alina Khan, Rasti Farooq, Sarwat Gilani, Sohail Sameer, Salman Peerzada, and Sania Saeed. 

Sadiq had previously showcased his short film Darling at the 2019 Venice Film Festival where it won the Orizzonti Best Short Film award. 

Ramin Bahrani of The White Tiger fame is one of the executive producers along with William Olsson, Jen Goyne Blake, Tiffany Boyle, Elsa Ramo, Hari Charana Prasad, Sukanya Puvvula, Oleg Dubson, Kathrin Lohmann, and Owais Ahmed, writes Variety.

Joyland is produced by Apoorva Guru Charan, Sarmad Sultan Khoosat, and Lauren Mann. The production houses attached to the project are All in Caps, Khoosat Films in association with Diversity Hire, One Two Twenty Entertainment, Blood Moon Creative, Film Manufacturers, Astrakan and Noruz Films.

"My amazing cast has given the characters of Joyland a kind of empathy and humanity that a filmmaker can only hope for and I am thrilled for the world to experience their magic," Sadiq said in a statement (via Variety). 

Indian documentary All That Breathes is also set to be screened at Cannes this year in its Special Screening segment. The festival will also see the world premieres of Tom Cruise's Top Gun: Maverick, the Elvis Presley biopic starring Austin Butler and Tom Hanks and George Miller's (of Mad Max-fame) Three Thousand Years of Solitude.

The Cannes Film Festival will take place from May 17 to May 22.