http://www.planetout.com/news/feature.html?sernum=5414&navpath=/topics/community/
by Hassan Mirza
As many people now know, homosexuality is widely condemned and
punished in Islamic countries. Only recently, Iran's President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad even denied the existence of homosexuality in Iran, baffling his
Columbia University audience.
Yet somehow some gays and lesbians still manage to embrace the religion that
is often used to persecute them. However, there is a growing resistance
within the Muslim community to the anti-gay beliefs held by many of its
religious leaders; some are challenging the polarization of religion and
sexuality.
In his first documentary, "A Jihad for Love," Indian filmmaker Parvez Sharma
ambitiously sets out to reclaim the term *jihad,* often misinterpreted as
"holy war," to articulate the intense *struggle* of gay and lesbian Muslims
-- what he calls an "invisible minority."
Born and raised in India, Sharma moved to the UK to pursue a master's degree
in broadcast journalism. In 2000 he moved to the U.S. and he has since
worked on projects for the BBC, Discovery Channel and the World Bank.
*Hassan Mirza: Tell me about your film "A Jihad for Love."*
*Parvez Sharma:* It is the world's first documentary on Islam and
homosexuality. It has been in production for six years, filmed in 12
countries and in nine languages. The reason it took such a long time to make
the film is that the subject matter was almost insurmountable. When you are
the first person trying to break down walls of silence that have existed for
a long time, you face challenges of how you are going to document life and
how you will do justice to the struggles that have not been heard. The film
provides an opportunity to engage with Islam in profound ways that have not
happened before. It presents a cast of very compelling characters: people
who are emerging as Islam's most unlikely storytellers.
*Tell me about your own background. Do you identify as a Muslim?*
I do identify as a Muslim. I don't have a choice -- that's the way I was! I
started making the film post-September 11, and I felt that my Muslim
identity, my being a Muslim, was much more an issue and much more a question
in a post-September 11 world. So that is why it seemed like a right time to
engage with making the film, stepping out as a Muslim, and telling these
stories. One of the things I always like to say that with this film, all of
us -- that's myself, and the subjects of the film included -- are coming out
as Muslims first, coming out as gay and lesbian second. We are laying equal
claim to Islam.
*Why did you make this film?*
Everything in my life seemed to lead up to this moment. One of the most
remarkable personal reasons is my own identity, my own religiosity, and my
own sexuality. Even though I've had the good fortune of not having been as
conflicted as some of the subjects in the film have been, I definitely
understand the dilemma of people who have faith -- in any religious context
-- have with their sexuality.
That dilemma is profound and definitely worth documenting. Certainly after
September 11, so much of the discourse around Islam has been problematic and
controlled by different agendas. The majority of Muslims -- ordinary human
beings, engaged in the struggles of everyday life -- are people who are not
spoken for. Within them there is an invisible minority of gay and lesbian
Muslims. To empower them and allow them to talk about Islam seemed like a
very timely and important decision, which led to the making of the film.
*Tell me about an individual story that you found especially provocative.*
Each of the subjects shared immense stories of courage, pain, but also of
happiness. There's a remarkable young Egyptian man who was imprisoned for a
year in Cairo, and he was part of the infamous Cairo 52 incident. He was
tortured in prison, had to flee Egypt, and ended up in Europe. His entire
life story, from that moment of being captured is documented in the film, as
are the stories of a gay Imam in South Africa, who is the world's first
openly gay Imam, a religious leader for the Muslim community. He came out as
a gay man and was then excommunicated from his own community. I also
traveled with a Moroccan woman as she went to be with her Arab girlfriend in
Cairo, in the heart of the Arab world, examining the struggles they
encountered in their union, in being able to live as a couple in society
does not permit that sexuality. So there's a rich portrait of the human
experience, but also of the gay and lesbian experience in the film.
*What kind of problems did you encounter in the filmmaking?*
It was a constant challenge to make this film. I often had to pretend to be
a tourist while filming. I could not seek government commissions to shoot in
many of these countries, and there were incidents, on and off, with local
enforcement. One of the biggest challenges was to transport the tapes safely
from the different countries where I was filming. The strategy I adopted was
on the first and last 15 minutes of all the tapes, I would shoot
tourist-looking footage so that if there were overzealous border patrol
agents, they would only see that. I would then store the primary interviews
with the subjects or any of the more sensitive material in the middle of the
tape. I would always check in the tapes in the checked-in baggage rather
carrying in the carry-on. So one of the biggest challenges was that, in
terms of real physical challenges.
The other challenge, of course, was to be able to convince all of these
remarkable people to agree to share their lives on camera. These people have
not been used to talking about their sexuality and their religion in any
context whatsoever. To gain their trust and gain their respect and to make
them understand that I was coming to them from within the community as a
Muslim filmmaker was a huge challenge.
*How has the film been received by the larger gay community? Have you
received criticism?*
As gay Muslims we are almost a triple minority. We are ostracized not just
in the West because we are Muslim, we are ostracized within our communities
for being gay and lesbian. And then we are ostracized, or at least
exoticized, in gay and lesbian communities because they're not used to many
of the gay subcultures that exist in the West.
The reaction overall has been extremely positive. You must understand the
film is still a baby, it's just an infant. We've premiered the film at the
Toronto Film Festival and we only had one other opportunity to screen the
film to audiences in Brazil. The journey of the film, the movement of the
film, is just starting. Every single time I have shown it to audiences,
especially gay audiences, they have engaged with it remarkably. I remember a
gay couple in Rio, just a few weeks ago, came up to me on the street and
said that they were at the film a previous night and that they recognized me
from the screening, and they said, "We are not Muslim, we're not even
religious Catholics, but we feel this film was about our lives. Thank you so
much for doing this."
What's really interesting is that queer audiences are finding mirrors of
their own life experiences in the film, even though it is filmed in
countries like Egypt, India, Iran, and Turkey, which many of them have not
been to and certainly know little about. But they're finding enough humanity
and enough commonality of human experience in the film to share their
stories, to feel that the film talks to them.
*What is the best defense against homophobia in Muslim countries?*
Muslims should look at "A Jihad for Love" as a film that is deeply
respectful about Islam. Once they realize the commonality of the Muslim
experience that is shared by the filmmaker and the subjects of the film,
once audiences engage with the profound idea that all of these people are as
Muslim as any of them, they will be able to understand the homophobia that
is deeply engrained in many of them. That's why I fought very hard to make a
film that was respectful about my own religion and not just a blanket
condemnation of the orthodoxy. The people in this film are devout Muslims
first and their sexual identities follow. Therefore they need to be engaged
with, and their stories need to be told.
*How difficult was it to get the film financially produced?*
It was a huge challenge, it took many years of fundraising. At the same time
we were able to pre-sell the film to various television stations. There was
a huge outpouring of support from foundations and individual donors who said
this film was too important to ignore. They wanted to have a say in shaping
history and agreed to come forward and fund the film. More than two hundred
individuals and foundations have funded the film. The expanse of support
that we have been able to get gather is quite remarkable.
*When will there be viewings in the US?*
Have a look at *ajihadforlove.com* <http://www.ajihadforlove.com/> because
the festival schedule is constantly updated there. The film is traveling the
festival circuit widely at this time. It's going to be shown in the US early
next year, and it's going to be in cinemas in spring, 2008. The film is
getting theatrical distribution, and many people are going to have an
opportunity to see it.
*Why is it important for people to see this film now?*
They will get a chance to look at Islam through a completely different
prism. For queer audiences, they will get a chance to engage with the LGBT
experience, the queer experience, in profoundly different ways that we have
not even thought possible. I think the film is entertaining, and at the same
time engaging for gay men and for lesbians, for all of the people in our
community, because they get a chance to see the experience of being queer,
spoken in so many different languages and across so may different cultures,
in ways that are so tremendously enriching.
*For more information about "A Jihad for Love," please see
www.ajihadforlove.com or Parvez Sharma's blog at
www.ajihadforlove.blogspot.com *
--
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