The Pakistani government had already chosen to impose a ban on the screening of Joyland, the country’s official Oscars 2023 entry. The acclaimed movie Joyland by director Saim Sadiq is no longer prohibited. The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting imposed the ban, claiming that it contains ‘extremely unpleasant material,’ and the decision by the authorities comes days later.
The director immediately objected to the decision and asked the audience for support when the movie was banned. The movie, which represented Pakistan’s official submission for the impending 2023 Academy Awards, has won praise from critics at international film festivals. Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif’s aide Salman Sufi told The Associated Press that a committee the premier appointed to assess the movie decided to lift the ban. He claimed that the film had only received modest cuts from the board.
The ruling, according to Sufi, ‘is a simple yet powerful statement that the government stands by freedom of expression and protects it, and cannot allow petty smear campaigns or disinformation to be used as a stifling creative freedom.’
The film will be released by the Pakistani government, but before it starts screening across the nation, some sequences will be removed. Sufi didn’t go into detail on which scenes would be omitted.
The film, which tells the love story of a married man and a transgender woman, sparked outrage in Pakistan, a country with a majority of Muslims, and official censors this week forbade theatres from showing it. After much discussion, the movie will now be seen in theatres on November 18. Saim Sadiq makes his directing debut with Joyland. Sania Saeed, Ali Junejo, Alina Khan, Sarwat Gilani, Rasti Farooq, Salmaan Peerzada, and Sohail Sameer all have significant roles in the upcoming movie.
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