My film is bridging cultural divides. This gives me hope in such polarised times | Sarfraz Manzoor
There is a polarisation in today’s political culture that led me to seek solace in screenwriting, after almost 25 years as a journalist. I found the entrenched tribalism alienating and decided instead to explore the world of fiction and film. I thought I would be distracted from the question of our divided culture, but in fact I found potential clues for how to bridge the very divide I was fleeing from.
I have spent the last six weeks travelling across Britain and the US, promoting Blinded By the Light. The film, directed by Gurinder Chadha, is a fictionalised retelling of my memoir, Greetings from Bury Park. It tells what is ostensibly a very personal story. It is located in a specific time and place – Luton in 1987 – and it is about a teenage British Pakistani boy whose life feels constrained by his class, culture and community until he discovers the liberating power of the music of Bruce Springsteen. The film is uncompromising in its cultural specificity – and given its subject matter, one would assume it would mostly appeal to British Asians who lived through the 1980s, Bruce Springsteen fans, and in particular, Asian Bruce Springsteen fans who lived through the 1980s. What I had not appreciated was the power of storytelling to engender empathy.
Continue reading...from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2LeovY2
Comments
Post a Comment