Malala Yousafzai Backs Pakistan’s Oscar Submission ‘Joyland’

LOS ANGELES, CA (IANS) – Female education activist Malala Yousafzai, who heads her own film and TV production company, Extracurricular Productions, is joining “Joyland”, Pakistan’s Oscar submission in the international feature category, as an executive producer, reports ‘Variety’.

The film had its world premiere at Cannes earlier this year where it won the Queer Palm and the jury prize. It subsequently had its North American premiere in Toronto.

The film is currently playing at both the BFI London Film Festival, where it is competing for the Sutherland Award, which recognizes the most original and imaginative directorial debut, and the Busan International Film Festival.

The film is about sexual revolt which sees a patriarchal family yearn for the birth of a baby boy to continue the family line, while their youngest son secretly joins an erotic dance theater and falls for an ambitious transsexual starlet.

Yousafzai told ‘Variety’, “I am incredibly proud to support a film that proves Pakistani artists are among the best in global cinema. ‘Joyland’ invites us to open our eyes to the people closest to us and to see our family members and friends as they are, not colored by our own expectations or societal bias.”

In 2021, Yousafzai struck a multi-year programming deal with Apple TV+.