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| Ghost School |
Tomorrow, Thursday 2 July, the Muslim International Film Festival - otherwise known as MIFF - returns to London, opening with Venice award winner Hijra. Running over four days at the Odeon Luxe West End, it has an impressive feature programme with films from around the world, as well as an extensive line-up of shorts - and the really good news is that from here on out, it should be an annual occurence.
"This year, the program will take audiences from Saudi Arabia to Palestine, Pakistan, Algeria, and back to the UK," festival director Sajid Varda told Eye For Film. "A lot of the films are going to take people through wonderful emotional journeys. They're funny, they're moving, they're challenging, deeply human. And that's how I feel cinema should be."
The festival comes at a time when the UK's Muslim communities are reallyin need of support.
"We're living in very challenging times, dark times, where my community feels that they have no real place here, that they're not really seen, appreciated, valued. We're never made to feel as we belong in this country. So if anything, MIFF has become even more important, more significant, because we're seeing growing division, rising Islamophobia - but we also see people wanting greater understanding. I feel that in order to humanise our community, we really need to be able to share more stories, and audiences are looking for authentic stories rather than just stereotypes.
"We've been demonised in the media for decades and it's something which I don't feel is going to quieten down anytime soon. When people see a negative depiction of a Muslim on screen, especially if they don't have any real contact with that particular community that's being depicted, then people take away very strange ideas about what that community may be like.
"I've always felt that showing these wonderful human stories, these warm stories which people who are not Muslim can also share, goes a long way towards humanising a community. At the same time, having gone through the first MIFF and seen a lot of Muslims attend the festival and seeing Turkish Muslims come out of a Sudanese film and comment that, well, they felt that they have learned something about their Muslim brothers and sisters in another country, from another culture, hearing that was so powerful, realising actually everyone is getting to know one another.
"Whether it's Muslims getting to know one another, whether it's people from other faiths and backgrounds who are getting to know us and understanding actually Muslims are exactly like everyone else, there's more that unites us than divides us. We have to find that."
Asked about his personal favourites from this year's line-up, he says diplomatically "Every film this year has something very beautiful about it," but expresses particular enthusiasm for Hijra and closing film Human Tide. He hopes that the festival can help new talents to get noticed, with its Script Pitch Live event providing an opportunity for writers to engage with senior industry professionals. There will also be a special award presented to casting director Shaheen Baig.
"Representation of Muslims in film and TV is still very tokenistic. We also have to look at from whose lens we're seeing these stories. I'm always very shocked when I see a great Muslim storylinebut there's no Muslim in the writers room. And it shouldn't just be Muslims writing Muslim stories. We should be free to write stories for everyone, as other writers really believe that they can write stories for Muslims."
