Joyland

Director: Saim Sadiq, Cast: Ali Junejo, Rasti Farooq, Alina Khan. Winner: Cannes Film Festival Queer Palm and Cannes Film Festival Un Certain Regard Jury Prize, Independent Spirit Awards Best International Film. Punjabi and Urdu with English Subtitles, NR

The Ranas—a happily patriarchal joint family—yearn for the birth of a baby boy to continue the family line. Their youngest son secretly joins an erotic dance theatre and falls for an ambitious trans starlet. Their impossible love story slowly illuminates the entire Rana family’s desire for sexual rebellion. “Sadiq is not lecturing us or trading in types; he is taking us by sensory surprise, and the tale that he tells is funny, forward, and sometimes woundingly sad.” —The New Yorker