‘We’re one of the country’s biggest taxpayers,’ Bhandara boasted. Now it was listed on Pakistan’s stock exchange. The Murree Brewery had been founded in 1861 to slake the thirst of the soldiers of the Raj, as British rule in colonial India was known. The walls were lined with framed antique cartoons that depicted pearl-skinned British soldiers in battle, firing at wild-eyed tribesmen or spearing them with bayonets – century-old company calendars. ‘I’ll be with you in a minute,’ he said, signing some papers. He was in his sixties, a portly man with tinted glasses and a vaguely impish smile.
Minoo Bhandara perched behind an antique desk in a dimly lit office, resplendent in a three-piece suit despite the hundred-degree weather outside. A pungent odour of brewing hops wafted through the air. After passing the army’s General Headquarters, I turned onto a quieter road and pulled up outside a quaint-looking, Victorian-era building. The road led down a chaotic, fume-choked highway where tiny yellow taxis weaved around hulking rainbow-coloured trucks, their flanks painted with delicate floral motifs. Have something to add to the story? Share it in the comments below.In the summer of 2004, I drove from my new home in Islamabad to the dowdy garrison city of Rawalpindi, about fifteen miles away. The diary-type film, set in the filmmaker's hometown, shows a traditional society in which parents care more about their reputation than about their gay children's happiness.
"You get, of course, prejudice and some violence against a particular community on the one hand, but you also get this very progressive law which basically allows everyone to identify their own gender, and also identifies the third gender," he said.įor its short film award, the Queer Palm jury picked Will You Look At Me by Chinese director Shuli Huang. "Pakistan is very schizophrenic, almost bipolar," director Saim Sadiq told the outlet in an interview. In 2009, Pakistan legally recognised the third sex, and in 2018 the first transgender passport was issued.
The Queer Palm has been won by big-name directors in the past and attracted top talent to its juries, but has no official place at the world's top film festival.Ī post shared by Saim Sadiq of the surprise stemmed from the discovery by many at Cannes that Pakistan is one of the first nations to have given legal protection against discrimination to transgender people. "It has strong characters who are both complex and real.
' Joyland will echo across the world," Corsini said. "It's a very powerful film, that represents everything that we stand for," Queer Palm jury head, French director Catherine Corsini, told the publication.Ĭorsini herself took the award last year with "La Fracture", which features a lesbian couple's relationship against the backdrop of the "Yellow Vest" movement in France. It is the first-ever Pakistani competitive entry at the Cannes festival and on Friday also won the Jury Prize in the "Un Certain Regard" competition, a segment focusing on young, innovative cinema talent. Pakistan's first entry in competition section.Ĭongratulations to & team. History is made! #Joyland wins Jury Prize.