A Jihad for Love (preceded by a short film called In the Name of Allah) is a 2008 documentary film written and directed by Parvez Sharma and was the world's first film on Islam and homosexuality. It took a total of six years to make and premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2007. It premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in 2008 as the opening documentary film for the Panorama section.
The Indo-American Arts Council referred to it as a "seminal film" because of its unprecedented subject. The work that Sharma started with the film has become a staple in many books on Islam and at U.S. University libraries. Sharma wrote the foreword for the two-part anthology Islam and Homosexuality.
According to Sharma, South Africa's Muslim Judicial Council labeled him an apostate in response to the film.
Production A Jihad for Love is produced by Halal Films, in association with the Sundance Documentary Film Fund, Channel 4 Television (UK), ZDF (Germany), Arte (France-Germany), Logo (US) and SBS (Australia).
Director and producer Parvez Sharma and co-producer Sandi Dubowski raised more than a million dollars over a six-year period to make the film.
In an interview with The New York Times, Sharma said that he "would shoot touristy footage on the first 15 minutes and the last 15 minutes of a tape", with interviews for the documentary in between, to avoid having his footage seized at customs. He posed as an employee of an AIDS relief charity in one country. The documentary was filmed in 12 different countries and in nine languages. Sharma compiled 400 hours of footage of interviews throughout North America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. Countries included Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Egypt, Bangladesh, Turkey, France, India, South Africa, the United States, and the United Kingdom. He found many of his interviewees online, and received thousands of emails.
The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2007, and has been screened to great acclaim at several film festivals around the world. It was the Opening film for the Panorama Dokumente section of the Berlin International Film Festival in February 2008. The U.S. theatrical release was May 21, 2008, at the IFC Center in New York City. The film screened at the Frameline Film Festival in San Francisco on June 28, 2008, and the Tokyo International Lesbian & Gay Film Festival on July 13, 2008.
The website Faith in Equality put it at number 9 in a list of LGBT films about faith.
The Guardian said, "Dignity and despair are woven tightly together in A Jihad for Love, a six-year endeavour by Indian film-maker Parvez Sharma that explores Islam and homosexuality. Without a distributor in the US, the film is one of the hottest tickets at the festival, and nobody knows what will happen at the first public screening."
Immediately after the film's theatrical launch around the U.S., Sharma launched the Muslim Dialogue Project.
The film also helped to launch the career of South African gay Imam Muhsin Hendricks by putting him and his work on the international map.
In an interview with New York magazine, Sharma said, "Being gay and Muslim myself, I knew that this film had to be about us all coming out— as Muslims. It's about claiming the Islam that has been denied to us." With a target audience of "faithful Muslims", he undertook a variety of outreach tactics, including leafleting mosques.
In an interview to the German magazine Der Spiegel, Sharma explained the significance of the title: "I'm not looking at jihad as battle -- I'm looking at the greater jihad in Islam, which is the jihad as the struggle with the self. I also thought it was really compelling to take a word that only has one connotation for most -- to take that, reclaim it and put it in the same phrase as love, which is universal. I really think it explains it very well."
In 2004, when the film was still in production, The New York Times profiled the filmmaker (it would do so again in 2015) and said:Given the hostility toward homosexuality in some Islamic factions, Mr. Sharma has gone to great lengths to reassure many of his interview subjects that they will remain anonymous. But this obscuring of identities has led to what the director regards as one of his key challenges: filming people in silhouette or with their faces covered tends to reinforce a sense of shame around homosexuality, precisely countering one of Mr. Sharma's main objectives.The Nation explained the methodology Sharma employed to film:But shooting the film was no easy task. Sharma was forced to employ guerilla filmmaking tactics in Islamic countries where he knew he would never be granted government permission for his taboo subject matter. "I would shoot touristy footage on the first fifteen minutes and the last fifteen minutes of a tape, hoping that if the tape was actually confiscated at customs...they would not find the key part of the interviews, because they would just scroll through the beginning or the end," Sharma says. Luckily, Sharma managed to extradite his footage, over 400 hours worth, to the United States, where he whittled the secret lives of his subjects down to an eighty-minute film.Cinema Politica in a review said, "A Jihad for Love is Mr. Sharma's debut and is the world's first feature documentary to explore the complex global intersections between Islam and homosexuality."
The primary film industry rankings indicator Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a 78% score, which is considered high, as it is above the 60% threshold for a "fresh" score.
Distribution The film was made available on Amazon Prime and iTunes. It was one of Netflix's earliest acquisitions. US distributor First Run Features, acquired the film for a theatrical release as well. It was also co-produced with and broadcast on Logo, UK's Channel 4, Germany's ZDF, France's Arte, and the Sundance Documentary Film Fund.Press Kit ajihadforlove.org They bought the film and went on to release it in more than 30 cities in the U.S. alone. This kind of release was rare for a documentary in 2008.
At New York's IFC Center, the film ran for four and a half weeks.
Earning more than $22,000 in its first five days in New York City, the film was already breaking records for documentary.
By 2016, the film had been viewed by an estimated 8 million viewers in 50 nations. A lot had to do with its sale to television networks around the world.
The film was acquired for distribution on Netflix in 2008. It was declared "one of the best Netflix movies".
Because of its debut at the TIFF in 2007, this film is often confused as a 2007 film. However, the film is actually a 2008 film since it began its wide film festival, theatrical, broadcast, networks, and streaming runs in the same year.
Box office Opening Weekend USA: $13,418, 25 May 2008, Limited Release
Gross USA: $105,033, 21 September 2008
Mongrel Media in Canada acquired the film for theatrical distribution releasing it in Toronto and Montreal. First Run Features issued a press release at the early stages of the film saying: "A Jihad for Love had a World Premiere at The Toronto International Film Festival in September 2007. It was screened at The Berlin Film Festival in Panorama in February 2008. First Run Features acquired the film for US distribution and the film saw a US theatrical release at The IFC Center in NYC on May 21, 2008.
Screenings A Jihad for Love was screened at more than a hundred film festivals, including:
The Toronto International Film Festival, Canada, September 2007 The Rio Film Festival, Brazil, September 2007 The Morelia Film Festival, Mexico, October 2007 The Sheffield DocFest, UK, November 2007 The Out in Africa Film Festival in Johannesburg and Cape Town, South Africa, November 2007 MIX BRASIL, São Paulo Brasil, November 2007 The Image + Nation Film Festival, Montreal, Canada, November 2007 The Tri Continental Film Festival in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Bangalore, India, January 2008 The Berlin Film Festival, Germany, February 2008 Ambulante Documentary Film Festival, 16 cities in Mexico, February–April 2008 Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival, Greece, March 2008 London Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, UK, March 2008 Istanbul International Film Festival, April 2008 Singapore International Film Festival, April 2008 Frameline Film Festival, San Francisco, USA June 2008 Melbourne International Film Festival, Australia, July 2008 Special underground screenings in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and Lahore, Pakistan
Awards The movie won several international awards including:
Best Documentary, MIX BRASIL, São Paulo, Brasil Best Documentary, Image+Nation Film Festival, Montreal, Canada Best Documentary, The Tri-Continental Film Festival, India The film went on to win 15 other international awards including the GLAAD Media Award on June 30, 2009.
At the time GLAAD said the film won this award for many reasons including it being groundbreaking: "A Jihad for Love wins best documentary at the GLAAD media awards. Writer/director Parvez Sharma and producer Sandi Dubowski were present to accept the award for their groundbreaking work."
The film had its European premier as the opening film of Panorama Documente of the Berlin Film Festival also known as the Berlinale in February 2008, where it won a special "Teddy".
In a feature on the film titled "Muslim gay filmmaker Parvez Sharma risks personal safety to tell the stories of queer Muslims around the world", Cinema Politica said. In a piece entitled "Two tickets for Jihad Please", which is a direct quote from Parvez Sharma's interview with the Black Filmmakers Collective, the journalist also noted that the film was "critically acclaimed".
Cineaste magazine said,The climate was certainly ripe, and there was a very ambitious filmmaker who knew a good opportunity when he saw one. Parvez Sharma was raised Muslim in India and although he does have some feeling for his religion, he is by no means devout. However, as a resident of the US, post 9/11, he says he felt he had to do something in the battle to represent Islam. He declares that his religion was hijacked by extremists who preach violence and hatred, and he is not referring to Fox TV or George Bush. He means the radical clerics who have become the face of Islam in the West. Sharma sought to prove that his religion was a peaceful and loving one, and in effect, that not all Muslims are terrorists. Some are even gay.
Critical reception The film received extensive publicity worldwide. This started after its international release at the Toronto Film Festival in September 2007 and European premier as the opening film of Panorama Documente of the Berlin Film Festival in February 2008. At the latter festival the film won a special "Teddy".
The scores on Rotten Tomatoes, IMDb and Metacritic indicate that the film was overall rated very positively. The film has a score of 78% on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 32 reviews. It has a positive audience review of 68% which gives it an overall four out of 5 stars. IMDb rates the film at 13 on its list of 58 titles under the category of "Best documentaries on religion, spirituality and cults".