Saim Sadiq’s film Joyland was the first-ever entry from Pakistan to be officially screened at the Cannes Film Festival, the biggest international film festival in the world. This is a major accomplishment for any movie director; for a director and scriptwriter making his debut, it is colossal.

Last year in November, Saim was filming a script that had taken him years to perfect, featuring a motley crew of fledgling and veteran actors, aided by a well-known producer that he had worked with in the past and become good friends with.

Fast-forward to November this year. Joyland has climbed atop a rollercoaster similar to the one in the amusement park in Lahore from which its title has been inspired, and it has chugged its way right to the top. It touched the lofty heights of the Cannes Film Festival, getting standing ovations there, before ricocheting through multiple international festivals and screenings, winning awards and accolades and, finally, touching down on home soil and setting its sights on local cinema screens.

I am yet to see the movie when I meet Saim, although I have seen the trailer. However, a quick Google search affirms that there must be something unique about Joyland. The praise lavished upon the movie in multiple reviews, by publications from around the world, is really quite phenomenal. Actor Alina Khan, who plays one of the leads, tells me that, after the screening in Cannes, people would stop her and ask her if she was the actor that they had seen in Joyland.

Saim Sadiq’s debut feature film as a writer-director made it to the official selection at Cannes. It is also Pakistan’s official submission for the Oscars. Since then, he has been travelling the world, collecting accolades from around the world. As Joyland readies to release in Pakistan, he tells Icon about what the journey has been like for him…

I am tempted to tease Saim: didn’t anyone not like the movie?

“What are you talking about? Such people don’t exist,” he quips back.

Saim, thankfully, doesn’t have a bloated head despite his critically acclaimed filmmaking debut, but he is very evidently elated. He crafted his first feature film with a mix of characters and situations not quite knowing that his story arcs would enthral a worldwide audience.

Saim’s own story arc is off to a rocket start. Even now, merely days before the domestic premiere, the Joyland troupe has squeezed in a trip to the US, where they will be attending some more screenings before returning home.

Is Saim a different person from who he was one year ago, when he was treading water as a new director and scriptwriter, yet to receive standing ovations at prestigious international festivals?

“I haven’t really had time to process if there has been any change in me,” he muses. “Once I finished making the film, I had thought that my work was over. I didn’t realise that there would be so much more work to do — promoting it and travelling for screenings. I think I would require a pause in my life in order to answer this question.”

His current, very hectic — but I am sure gratifying — schedule is preceded by years of planning. Joyland was first written about six years ago. Saim, who got his MFA from the Columbia University School of The Arts, wrote the first draft in six months.

“The script was rewritten 16 times,” says Saim. “I also simultaneously write scripts on commission for producers abroad, but writing Joyland was a different process. I would be driving my car and thinking about the characters or a scene or how to make a line better. I would go to sleep thinking about these characters and wake up thinking about them. They were an integral part of my day-to-day existence and I would constantly be writing, if not physically, then in my head.”

His efforts came together in a movie that reviewers have described in glowing words and phrases such as “wonderfully sensitive” and “luminous”. Joyland, from what Saim tells me, is a story that is driven by the emotions of its characters, it has elements of fun and also dark, introspective moments. The characters are a diverse mix, from a transgender exotic dancer to the members of a deeply patriarchal family struggling with their own dilemmas.

It seems to be the sort of story that doesn’t usually get told in mainstream Pakistani cinema and, long before its local cinematic release was announced, the inclusion of transgender actor Alina Khan was being criticised. In the many years during which he wrote the script and then proceeded to direct it, did Saim never worry that his movie may not easily get accepted in Pakistan?

“For one, I was just very excited,” he says. “This is my first film and to be making it with these characters, these actors was exciting. Also, I knew that the movie was not sensational in any way. There is nothing in it that we don’t see in our daily lives or out on the roads.

“Just because there is a trans character in the movie doesn’t make it a sensationalist story. We see trans characters everywhere, everyday and, even in mainstream media, comedians have been impersonating them for very long. Do people have a problem with Joyland because we are not ridiculing trans people in it?

“Maybe it’s time for people to grow up and accept that, if we have seen trans people be ridiculed in many movies, we can also see a movie in which there is a trans character — one of many characters — and she’s being treated with sensitivity and given a voice much like all the other characters.”

Saim continues, “I was born in Lahore, I grew up here, went abroad to study for three years and returned back home. I am as Pakistani as anyone else and it is my right to decide that this is the kind of story that I want to tell and view.”

So there’s no secret Western agenda that Saim is working for, as suggested by certain factions on social media, aimed at spreading vice and obscenity in our land of the pure? This makes him laugh.

“I should be very rich then if I am fulfilling some Western agenda. Please find these Western people because they haven’t paid me at all!”

This prompts me to ask him about money: given his penchant for out-of-the-box storytelling, he can’t possibly be prioritising monetary gains at this point in his career?

Just because there is a trans character in the movie doesn’t make it a sensationalist story. We see trans characters everywhere, everyday and, even in mainstream media, comedians have been impersonating them for very long. Do people have a problem with Joyland because we are not ridiculing trans people in it?”

“At this point, no I don’t,” he says. “I don’t want to make a film with the focus being to get money or even getting critical appreciation at film festivals. The story has to be engaging and honest and that was my intent with Joyland. I hope that it remains the driving force behind what I do, moving forwards.”

It’s an admirable work ethic but I observe that this commitment to craft is only possible for those who have a financially strong background. Saim agrees —to an extent. “You can never dissociate from the privilege that you come with. I can’t deny that it has helped me that my parents were able to support me in my education and my Masters degree has definitely helped.

“At the same time, I have been supporting myself ever since my graduation. It’s harder if you don’t have that privilege but it’s certainly not impossible.”

Saim also undeniably has some very powerful names bolstering his very first feature film: his cast includes well-known actors such as Sania Saeed, Sarwat Gillani and Sohail Sameer, while Sarmad Khoosat is listed as a co-producer. Only recently, Malala Yousufzai joined the team as an executive producer. The end credits of Joyland really do pack in the punches.

“Sarmad was my boss and, in a way, my first film school!” Saim explains. “I was the assistant director for the TV series Mor Mahal and he was the director. We worked on that project for a year and I got to learn a lot from him. Over time, we became good friends. He’s a mentor, a father figure, and I always knew that, if I ever made a film, I would want him to be a part of it.

“And then, I knew Sania through Sarmad. Both Sania and Sarmad were easy to get on board because, even though they are major mainstream names, they are also artists who care about stories and characters. Both of them almost immediately said yes after reading the script.”

How did the association with Malala come about?

“She came on board purely for advocacy. In the Western world, there is this tradition of a known name becoming executive producer of a film in order to lift its profile and get more people to see it. This was important for Joyland, even more so since it is Pakistan’s submission for the Oscars next year.”

He continues, “Malala has been extremely sweet and supportive. She has been very forthcoming with promoting the film, giving interviews and she came for the London premiere. It is nice to have a big name associated with Joyland, especially because that name is from Pakistan.

“Also, even though Joyland features both new and more experienced actors, they were all very easy to work with. Their only concern was to be truthful to the characters that they were playing. On set, there was no difference between any of the actors in the way that we treated them or how they treated us. Everyone was on an even playing field. Till date, while promoting the film, they have all gotten along so well. They bring no baggage with them of being established or new.”

The making of every movie is replete with memories, collated over long hours of shooting and Saim has plenty to share: the time when lead actor Ali Junejo succumbed to severe sciatica back pain and had to take three days off and the shooting schedule had to be revised completely; the time when actor Rasti Farooq, who runs quite a bit in the movie, got injured while running even though a large chunk of her scenes still had to be shot; how actor Alina Khan’s feet got swollen after shooting dance sequences for three days…

“Alina told Ali in the make-up room that she was probably gaining weight because her feet looked so big. She said that it was a good thing since I had wanted her to gain weight for her role. Ali looked at her feet and told her that they were swollen!”

And then there was the way in which Saim surprised his team on his birthday, revealing that they were going to be going to the Cannes Film Festival.

Saim recalls, “It so happened that the deadline for sending submissions to Cannes was in March and the film was not ready at that time. I was still editing it but I knew that I would be done in a couple of weeks. We decided that we would apply with a work in progress cut, letting them know that some of the colour and dubbing still had to be completed. We heard back from them and, after that, we wrapped up two and a half months’ work in six weeks. It was very exciting.

“It was my birthday and I got everyone on a Zoom call with me. Sarwat was in Urdu Bazar, Ali was in Dolmen Mall, someone else was driving and I told them, ‘You know that movie you shot two months ago, it’s going to Cannes!’” Saim beams.

Standing ovations and rave reviews followed — but Pakistani keyboard warriors, viewing the Cannes entourage from their vantage point, took offence to what the Joyland team wore on the festival’s red carpet! Did the Joyland team get offended that instead of being proud of their movie’s success, Pakistan was busy dissecting their sartorial choices?

“I stand by my pink suit, I think that it was quite nice,” he grins. “Maybe the criticism didn’t reach us to that extent. I think that we were too obsessed with the movie releasing to care about these things. The red carpet was just a small part of what we were there for. Our main focus was the screening. None of the cast had seen Joyland on the big screen till then. We were excited for that.”

Does Saim think that the international mileage earned by Joyland has helped ease the way for its cinematic release in Pakistan? “Of course it helps. I’d never expected the movie to receive this level of appreciation but, now that it has, perhaps more people are aware about it in Pakistan and may want to see it.

“In Pakistan, we love the ‘West ka thappa’ [the stamp of the West] but we also dislike it. We usually can’t make up our mind whether getting appreciated by the West is good or bad!” he laughs. “So far, though, the positive reviews received by Joyland internationally have been beneficial for us.”

Was there trouble getting the movie, with its atypical storyline, passed by the local censors? “Actually, the censor boards were very appreciative. I got messages from some officials saying that they loved the movie. They asked for a few beeps to be inserted in places and, I don’t know why, a few lines have been eliminated. Still, the overall viewing experience hasn’t been ruined at all.”

What has Saim enjoyed the most: directing Joyland, writing it or promoting it on the red carpet? “Writing is a long and tedious process. You enjoy it for one day and then, for the next 29 days, you’re scratching your head as you try to take the story forwards. It can be tough.

“Directing is the most enjoyable part. You’re part director, part viewer and you’re not alone, you have so many people with you. It’s a very alive process, where there are all these different brains working together, steering the course of scenes. The red carpet, I enjoy the least.”

Recalling his experience of the Cannes red carpet, he says, “It was so organised that it was intimidating. They told you to stand in line and which cameras to look at. You couldn’t move your feet even slightly. There was no time to enjoy it. It was like P.T. [Physical Training] display in school. And you thought to yourself, ‘Yeh jail hai ke red carpet? [Is this a red carpet or jail?].”

It’s a hilarious description of the glitzy, coveted Cannes red carpet. It’s also refreshing. There is an unpretentious newness to Saim Sadiq that remains even though he has been travelling the world, collecting from everywhere for his very first movie.

One hopes that he stays this way, telling stories from the heart, telling stories that he wants to tell rather than succumbing to conventional commercial formulas. His joyride has only just begun.

Published in Dawn, ICON, November 13th, 2022