This year’s Lux Style Awards were more than just a ceremony celebrating the best of the entertainment industry. We got two sweet surprises that definitely became the highlights of the event.
Actress Sarwat Gilani showed everyone how to leave a mark even when you’re not nominated, by announcing her pregnancy in a picture with the rest of the ‘Joyland’ cast.
“Couldn’t think of a better picture to announce our new arrival! Celebrating together the biggest joy of now and the future.”
Celebrities were as moved by the announcement as social media users, congratulating the actress on her impending bundle of joy.
Mira Sethi and Frieha Altaf sent their congratulations to the actress.
Sarwat was not the only celebrity to share her pregnancy announcement, however. Actress Urwa Hocane moved social media to tears when she shared a picture of herself and husband Farhan Saeed along with her visible baby bump, announcing that they were set to become parents for the first time.
The final nominations for the prestigious Lux Style Awards 2023 are finally here, celebrating the best of the art and culture of Pakistan. The 22nd award ceremony will be held in Karachi, attended by the creme de la creme of the entertainment industry.
This year marks a cultural shift as Pakistani entertainment is fresh off the high of global praise. Songs from Coke Studio like ‘Pasoori’ by Ali Sethi and Shae Gill received international acclaim, and the later was also the subject of a controversial re-make in the Bollywood film ‘Satyaprem Ki Katha’.
Pakistani films like Kamli by Sarmad Khoosat were well received , as well as ‘The Legend Of Maula Jatt’ which was sadly not included in the nominations after the producers released a statement saying the ceremony’s limited film categories honoring writers and directors is the reason why they did not submit their film as consideration.
‘Joyland’ by Saim Sadiq which featured the transgender actress Alina Khan, is among the most nominated films in the awards ceremony. The movie received a standing ovation at the Cannes Film Festival, and was shortlisted as a nomination for the Academy Awards.
Check out which one of your favorite film, drama or actors made it as the final nomination.
It has been months, but yet the impact that Pakistani writer and director Saim Sadiq managed to create with his debut film ‘Joyland’ is still a joy to witness, especially how Indian audiences are praising the filmmaker and the cast for how they tackled a sensitive topic in a beautiful way.
Indian director Nikkhil Advani attended a screening of the film where there was an interactive session with Sadiq, and along with the rest of the cast. Sharing pictures from the full house event, he praised the film as well as Sadiq for his grip on the story and incredible talent as a director:
“We closed the season of Cinema House at G5A foundation with the incredible Joyland. Saim’s control of the writing and the craft is masterful. What bold choices he has made in every department need to be first applauded and then studied.”
He also praised the acting skills of Ali Junejo, Alina Khan, Raasti Farooq:
“Rasti, Alina, and Ali – my god, what performances. We all just sat for a few minutes in stunned silence. Apoorva Charan – more power to you and I know whatever you choose to do in the future is going to be so so special. Thank you.”
The director shared another picture of the completely occupied house, as well as the interactive session held with the cast members
Sadiq, who has been signed with talent agency CAA, had spoken to The Guardian about the inspiration behind his film, when in 2016, he took a semester off from Colombia University where he was completing his Masters, to go back to Lahore and visit theatres. Sadiq recounted how he spent four months visiting exotic theatres, talking to dancers:
“Pakistan has become a bit schizophrenic, it’s a bit bipolar,” revealed Sadiq. “People pray and then they do a lot of things that they’re not supposed to do. There are these weird sort of outlets that people have found to be able to express themselves.”
Speaking on the ban, which was initiated by the Punjab government in 2022, Sadiq said:
“It’s mostly people trying to avoid discomfort that stems from the idea that people have sex. We spend our lives trying to hide our desires and the fact that other people have desires around us.”
British newspaper Guardian released an article on some of the best films of 2023 so far, ranging from horror to thrillers and animated comedy films like ‘Marcel the Shell with Shoes On”.
On the 15th place is Pakistani writer and director Saim Sadiq’s debut film ‘Joyland’ which starred Ali Juenjo and transgender model Alina Khan.
Discussion the significance of the film, the article described it as “a movie about people who find their inner lives and sense of themselves don’t match up to what is expected of them. Their feeling of wrongness is part of what they have to suppress, from day to day.”
The film, which was banned in Punjab last year just 24 hours after it got a certificate of approval from CBFC, had aired in India in March, receiving positive remarks from watchers who described their experience as ‘magical’:
One user wrote:
“Still can’t get over the experience of watching Joyland on big screen. I’ve never seen the crowd get this hyped, laugh and cry together for a movie before, magical experience.”
still can’t get over the experience of watching Joyland on big screen. I’ve never seen the crowd get this hyped, laugh and cry together for a movie before, magical experience pic.twitter.com/rEnltdZca1
“Joyland is fantastic, heartbreaking and beautifully made – the experience of watching it amongst an engaged enthusiastic audience last night at the Habitat center film festival was exhilarating. Also what about this poster by Salman toor!”
Joyland is fantastic, heartbreaking and beautifully made – the experience of watching it amongst an engaged enthusiastic audience last night at the Habitat center film festival was exhilarating. Also what about this poster by Salman toor! pic.twitter.com/l2lCRz7o7L
Last night’s screening of Joyland in Delhi was magical. People waiting in lines for a Pakistani film that so lyrically talks about patriarchy and the loneliness it breeds. People sitting on floors in awe, clapping and crying in unison. Through grief and borders, art finds a way. pic.twitter.com/pLfTuLOHnO
On Alina Khan’s birthday, director and writer of ‘Joyland’ Saim Sadiq took to Instagram to appreciate the actor’s talent and creative spirit by sharing how the two had bonded together before shooting a scene in Joyland where the audience meets Biba for the first time.
You can read the full post below:
A day before the shoot for Darling, Alina disappeared for hours. @sanajafri14 and I texted her to bring this particular pair of shoes with her that she had to wear for her first scene. The first scene this magnificently talented girl would ever shoot in her life. But Alina just wouldn’t answer anyone’s call.
No one could trace her until 12 am at night when she finally called me from an unknown number. I could tell that she was trembling when she said she was stuck in “a situation” and just ran away from it and now needs a place to stay the night. I told her to come over.
She finally arrived at 2 am. She had bruises on her neck from the assault that she had managed to run away from. Yet, all she cared about was that she makes it to set on time and not lose this opportunity. And in that escape, she lost her phone and handbag. All she managed to bring with her were the shoes and she kept assuring herself and me that everything was still fine because she had her shoes for her first scene. I gave her an ointment, she slept in my sister’s room and the next morning we started the shoot, cracking jokes and being chill as if nothing had happened.
Years later, we shot for her introductory scene as Biba in Joyland and had the most cathartic experience of our lives. Both of us found a quiet room to discuss what we normally only joke about: the casualness with which we have to process the violence around us. We both cried and got the tears out of our systems because we didn’t want Biba to cry in the scene. She was going to show up with the blood on her shirt and there was going to be no explanation to where it came from. Because the everyday violence around us never ever makes sense. We hugged and cried again after packup because we knew… this was our scene.
It’s hard for me to think of a person who is more unaware of their inspirational status in other people’s lives than Alina! You are a true heroine of our times! Happy Birthday, @onlyalinakhan ! Thank you for your talent, your spirit, and your magical artistry!
Alina Khan, the transgender star of the award-winning film Joyland recently chatted with The Guardian over her journey as a transgender and the ban on the movie in Pakistan.
Khan said she was rejected by her family when she came out as trans. “My family did not accept me, but neither did society.” She was told she embarrassed relatives, and her mother was constantly angry with her. “She would tell me not to make exaggerated hand gestures like a woman while talking, to sit like a boy and not be in the company of girls,” said Khan. Her siblings called her khusra – a derogatory term, which was originally used to refer to eunuchs but is also a slur against trans people. But as Khan said: “I had never met a transgender [person] in my life so did not know what they were like.”
After she received global appreciation for her work, Khan’s family welcomed her with warmth. “They accepted me finally. They realised that I was not earning by begging or doing sex work,” she said.
Joyland has been hailed on the festival circuit. It was the first Pakistani film to be selected as an official entry at Cannes in May, winning two festival awards and receiving a standing ovation in a packed Salle Debussy theatre.
“Tears were trickling down my face while I continued smiling. I don’t know whether the tears were of joy, were for all the hard work that I put in, or for my struggles since I was a child and that continue,” said Khan, who made her screen debut in the short film Darling in 2019. “For the first time in my life, I felt my talent preceded my gender, I was given so much respect.”
The Saim Sadiq directorial was banned last week by the Pakistani government. Canceling the film’s license, which puts its Oscars’ contention in doubt, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, announced: “Written complaints were received that the film contains highly objectionable material which do not conform with the social values and moral standards of our society and is clearly repugnant to the norms of ‘decency and morality’ as laid down in Section 9 of the Motion Picture Ordinance, 1979”.
Alina expressed her disappointment with the film’s ban in Pakistan, “I’ve been very sad. There’s nothing against Islam and I don’t understand how Islam can get endangered by mere films.”
The 24-year-old added: “The Pakistani trans community was also very upset.”
Set in Lahore, the film tells the story of Haider, a married man who joins a dance troupe and falls in love with the lead transgender dancer, Biba, played by Khan.
Khan told the Guardian she adores Biba.
A poster for Joyland, designed by the Pakistani artist Salman Toor. Photograph: Courtesy of Alina Khan
“She’s a badass, strong-willed, fiercely independent, dominating, outspoken woman, everything that I am not; I loved the role I played,” said Khan. When she was offered the role, she was relieved not to play an “oppressed” character “which is the life for most transgenders in Pakistan”.
