Only Love Matters feature film world premiere on 6 October
By: Communications
The romantic feature film, Only Love Matters, which was directed by Dr Kamran Qureshi, UEA alumni and Associate Lecturer, is set to have its world premiere on 6 October in Marbella, Spain, and its UK premiere on 27 October (World Intersex Awareness Day) at BFI Southbank.
Only Love Matters is the first feature film in cinema history to have intersex lead characters set in Britain. Intersex people are born with sex characteristics that do not fit typical binary notions of male or female bodies; the film sheds new light on intersex visibility and has been described as “the first British film to explore intersex... a real landmark moment for British Cinema” by Prof Richard Hand, UEA.
The fiction film presents two lead characters born with variations of sex characteristics and its narrative explores the sacrifices that Sam Patel Davidson makes for her adopted daughter Stef Davidson, and her struggle for the rights of intersex people. Only Love Matters highlights the issues encountered by intersex people and their families around surgery, romantic relationships, intersex-mother-child issues, love, affection and family life; it seeks to show the real lived experiences of these individuals.
The professional practice-research of this film was undertaken by Dr Qureshi, with Prof Richard Hand and Prof Eylem Atakav from UEA’s School of Art, Media and American Studies. In addition, more than 300 collaborators participated in this project from across the globe, including intersex experts, professional screenwriter, actors, producers, lyricists, music composers, singers, facilitators, translators, and crew from the US, UK, India, Pakistan, China, Greece, France, Iceland, and Germany.
Image L-R: Prof Richard Hand, Dr Iram Qureshi, Dr Kamran Qureshi, Prof Eylem Atakav
Prof Eylem Atakav said: “Only Love Matters brings to the audience an idea of what intersex characters mean in film and for the film. But it does that so elegantly and originally and thought-provokingly by offering a story of love and romance and drama.”
Only Love Matters was produced by Dr Iram Qureshi of KQ Movies - a London-based film production company – who took responsibility for producing an ambitiously collaborative feature-length cinematic piece of work and raised finances for the film, working together with professional screenwriter Iannis Aliferis.
To date, the film has won more than 30 awards, including Best Director, Best Producer, Best Feature Film, the Engagement Award 2022 at UEA, and was the finalist in the Innovation and Impact Awards.
The film’s initial research started when Dr Qureshi was working on the screenplay of another feature film, Catherine, in which he created an intersex character called Patrick. As he worked on this, he was curious to know about how people born with intersex variations have been portrayed on the screen, and after searching for films and existing literature on the topic, his research suggested that there had never been a film about the subject in the UK.
Image L-R: Michael Mcgarry, Rosie Ferris, Patrick Clarke, Angela Peters, Josh Simpson, Sara Faraj, Allie Denison in Only Love Matters (credit: BLV)
Prof Richard Hand said: “What’s wonderful about it is that it is richly textured, you get a sense of society. You get a sense of love and universal values of that. At the same time, it explores people with a difference. People we may not see normally, people we may not engage with, but it draws us into their world and makes us realise we’re all human after all.”