‘Joyland’ wins Best International Film at Spirit Awards 2023

‘Joyland’ has won the Best International Film at Spirit Awards 2023!

Joyland’s journey may have ended for the Oscars but Saim Sadiq directorial added another award to its long list of accolades at the 38th Independent Spirit Awards.

As reported, the film which has been marred with controversies at home managed to beat four other nominations including Marie Kreutzer’s Corsage, Martika Ramirez Escobar’s Leonor Will Never Die, Davy Chou’s Return to Seoul and Alice Diop’s Saint-Omer.

Saim Sadiq in his award-winning speech thanking everyone from producers Riz Ahmed, Malala, and Apoorva Guru Charan to his crew, and cast, exclaimed that he wouldn’t have come this far without them, said, “They did send us an email saying you should prepare a speech and I archived it and I didn’t take it seriously at all and now I’m ashamed because I have so many things to say and so many people to thank and I’m just scared that I’ll forget someone.”

“Thank you really because to support a film that comes from Pakistan that’s in Urdu and Punjabi and talks about the things that this film talks about, it’s not an easy decision to make,” he said.

“It was easier for me to say I want to make this film but perhaps pretty hard for them to say they want to put their mind behind it so I think they deserve so much credit for it.”

“[I want to thank] the three people who really really made this film. Alina Khan, Ali Junejo and Rasti Farooq, this one would not be possible without you. Thank you so much. I hope your future is so so bright,” he concluded.