Joyland - Film at The Share Centre

Venue: The Share Centre | 88 Stow Hill, Newport, NP20 4DW
Date: 06/11/2026
Doors: 18:00 Close: 22:00
Entry: Free

JOYLAND
Directed by Saim Sadiq | Pakistan | 2022 | 127 mins | Urdu & Punjabi with English subtitles

In Lahore, the Rana family live under the expectations of an ageing patriarch who longs for the birth of a grandson. His younger son Haider is unemployed, gentle and apparently content to remain at home. But when he secretly takes a job as a backing dancer at an erotic theatre, he enters a world very different from the one his family has created for him. There he meets Biba, the fiercely ambitious trans performer at the centre of the show. Their unexpected attraction begins to expose something much larger: the desires, frustrations and compromises hidden throughout the Rana household.

WHY WATCH JOYLAND?
Joyland is a love story, but not simply between two people. It is also about what happens when the life you want collides with the life your family, your gender and your society have already imagined for you.

Director Saim Sadiq looks at masculinity, femininity, marriage, work and sexuality without reducing his characters to heroes and villains. The restrictions of a patriarchal family affect everyone, including those who appear to benefit from them. The result is intimate, funny, sensual and ultimately devastating.

Sadiq has described the film as a way of exploring desire, masculinity and femininity, and his own relationship with the patriarchal society that shaped him.

Joyland was Sadiq's first feature and won the Jury Prize in Un Certain Regard at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival.

WHILE YOU'RE WATCHING
Look at the spaces people occupy. Who is allowed outside — to work, perform, travel and explore — and who remains inside the home?

Notice too how the film uses colour, bodies, mirrors, doorways and crowded rooms. Characters are frequently surrounded by other people, yet many of their most important desires remain private.

And consider the question running through the film: Who gets to decide what a successful life looks like?

AFTER THE FILM
Stay with us for an informal conversation after the screening. There is no right interpretation and you don't need to know anything about film beforehand.

WANT TO GO DEEPER?

A closer look at Saim Sadiq's filmmaking and the politics beneath the family drama.
Joyland - Slant Magazine
Joyland - The Irish Times

Further reading

Joyland - The New Yorker

CONTENT NOTE
Joyland deals with mature themes including sexuality, discriminatory attitudes towards LGBTQ+ people, sexism, suicide and bereavement, alongside strong sexual content and very strong language.

URBAN CIRCLE COMMUNITY CINEMA
Come for the film. Stay for the conversation.

Friday 6 November 2026
Free community cinema followed by an informal audience discussion.