“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. Parvez enters the many worlds of Islam by illuminating multiple stories as diverse as Islam itself. The film travels a wide geographic arc presenting us lives from India, Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, Egypt, South Africa and France. Always filming in secret and as a Muslim, Parvez makes the film from within the faith, depicting Islam with the same respect that the film’s characters show for it.
Parvez Sharma is a New York based writer and filmmaker. His first feature, which he directed and produced, “A Jihad for Love” is an international phenomenon with more than 700, 000 viewers in 30 nations in the first year of its release. The film has been premiered at most major international festival venues including a world premier at Toronto in 2007 and a European premiere (as the opening film of Panorama Documentary) in Berlin, 2008. The winner of five international awards, the film has been theatrically released across the US and in Canada and is being broadcast around the world. This documentary deals with the difficult themes of Islam and homosexuality in a post-September 11 world and also seeks to challenge many stereotypes around Islam, in a time when much of the religion and its one billion followers are misunderstood. The film has generated an international media blitz with the New York Times, the Washington Post, The LA Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Houston Chronicle, the Guardian, The Times of London, the Independent, Der Speigel, Stern, Newsweek, the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, Variety, Hollywood Reporter, Screen International, BBC, CNN, SBS, ZDF, CBC, NPR, al-Arabiya and hundreds of others writing about and profiling Mr. Sharma’s work.”