![\"Joyland\"](\"https:\/\/test.somethinghaute.com\/images\/2022\/06\/Screen-Shot-2022-06-13-at-1.50.24-PM.png\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
In many ways, Saim Sadiq’s journey to Cannes started long before the genesis of Joyland<\/em>. The director\u2019s fascination with films was apparent from a very young age. A three-year-old Saim would demand to be dropped off at his aunt\u2019s house so he could watch Sridevi\u2019s Laadla <\/em>on her VHS player. \u201cEvery day I would watch Laadla<\/em>,\u201d he laughs now, \u201cIt\u2019s an obnoxiously bad film but it\u2019s so entertaining and I loved Sridevi, God bless her.\u201d<\/p>\n This went on for months, Laadla <\/em>eventually being replaced with other films, but always from Bollywood. \u201cMy parents would drop me to my aunt\u2019s house and I would be totally fine, a three-year-old kid not caring at all where his parents were because I was watching Sridevi and Anil Kapoor, or Shahrukh and Kajol.\u201d<\/p>\n Bollywood remained Saim\u2019s primary source of cinema for most of his younger years, his \u201cchildhood love\u201d as he calls it. With the advent of the internet and DVD technology, Saim says his \u201cworld opened up\u201d. He began to read about films as voraciously as he watched them and this directed his attention towards international cinema. He’d go to the DVD store and ask for films from Sweden, Iran, and Poland. For a teenage Saim, films were gateways to different ideas and ways of living. \u201cI also felt the most comfortable in my own skin while engaging with cinema,\u201d says Saim, \u201cWhether it was watching a movie, or reading about a movie, or writing about one. I was the happiest at that point.\u201d<\/p>\n The filmmaker also had a knack for storytelling from a very young age. \u201cI remember being a writer since I was a child,\u201d he says. \u201cIt was inherent to me\u201d. However, for a very long time he didn\u2019t see how connected filmmaking and storytelling are. \u201cThose things conflated for me much later, in LUMS,\u201d he remembers now. \u201cEventually I realized I can write, I\u2019m interested in movies, and I can take pictures, and these things are connected so perhaps I\u2019m meant to be making films.\u201d<\/p>\n By this time, Saim was no stranger to the camera. His first video project had been a music video when he was in high school. During his undergraduate year at LUMS, he also worked on short films and documentaries. At the end of his four years at university, as Saim\u2019s batchmates went off to work at corporate jobs, Saim simply didn\u2019t. Instead, he told his parents that he had found a way to contact Sarmad Khoosat and would be working with him. At that point, all Saim knew of Sarmad was that he had made Humsafar<\/em>, which his parents loved. The bluff manifested into reality because Saim did find a way to contact Sarmad, who eventually brought him on as the assistant director on Mor Mahal<\/em>.<\/p>\n Saim knew within his first day on Mor Mahal <\/em>that he belonged on a film set. \u201cI\u2019m the happiest on a set,\u201d he says, \u201cI\u2019m so comfortable. Things that I find difficult to do otherwise, if you ask me to do them on set, I\u2019ll do them easily. I\u2019m tired, I look terrible, I don\u2019t eat well or sleep enough, but none of it matters because I enjoy it so much.\u201d<\/p>\n On set, Saim also discovered a side of himself that he liked, \u201cI became a nicer version of myself,\u201d he reveals, \u201cIt was much more difficult to irritate me, I would not shout at people. I was the kind of AD who was nice but would get things done. I realized this is the best version of me, the person I am on a film set, so it made sense for me to do this with my life.\u201d<\/p>\n It was while shooting for Mor Mahal <\/em>that Saim was admitted for a Masters in Columbia University\u2019s film program. Two weeks before filming for Mor Mahal <\/em>wrapped, Saim was flying to New York to begin a formal education in filmmaking. The next few years were, \u201cthe best thing that ever happened to me,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n It was during his time at Columbia that Saim first sat down to start giving form to an idea that had been swirling around in his brain, an idea that would eventually become Joyland.<\/em><\/p>\n In the month leading up to Joyland\u2019s <\/em>premiere at the Festival De Cannes, Saim Sadiq says he started, \u201closing my mind a little bit. And not in a cute way\u201d. The director had been carrying his feature film for the better part of a decade. For at least six years, he had been actively writing it, evolving the story, letting the characters grow in the directions that they were moving in. The idea, however loose it was at first, had been with him for much longer.<\/p>\n To Saim, Joyland <\/em>was very much like his child, he admits. It had been incubating inside his mind for a very long time and, as the premiere approached, he found himself faced with the reality that it was no longer his to carry. Coupled with the stress of finishing postproduction, this was \u201cvery emotional\u201d for the filmmaker, and straight up, \u201cawful\u201d. However, there was nothing to do at that point other than power through and two days before the festival, Joyland <\/em>was ready to meet the world.<\/p>\n On 28th<\/sup> March 2021, less than a year after he finished filming Joyland<\/em>, Saim Sadiq turned thirty-one. At 2:00 in the afternoon, he sat contemplating whether to go take a shower. An email arrived in his inbox. It was from the head of programming at the Festival De Cannes.<\/p>\n Saim still had about two weeks of editing to go before Joyland <\/em>would be ready for color-grading. With the encouragement of his producers Sarmad Khoosat and Apoorva Guru Charan, he had decided to submit the film for consideration. There was an expectation that they might not get in with an unfinished cut. This expectation, as we now know, was unfounded. Cannes was emailing Saim to inform him that Joyland <\/em>had been picked as a contender in the festival\u2019s Un Certain Regard section.<\/p>\n![\"Joyland\"](\"https:\/\/test.somethinghaute.com\/images\/2022\/06\/Saim-award.jpeg\")
![\"Joyland\"](\"https:\/\/test.somethinghaute.com\/images\/2022\/06\/Apoorva-and-Saim.jpeg\")
\n
\n\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\nView this post on Instagram<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n