Tarik El Hob

I saw this film last night as part of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Film Festival 2004. It is an extraordinary thesis on islamic homosexuality and a love story. The story concerns a heterosexual french algerian muslim student, Karim, who after seeing a story on television about gay men in Egypt decides to do a video thesis on homosexuality and islam. In the process he discovers his sexuality and falls in love with a gay arab man (Farid) that is one of his interviewees. The movie is about an issue rarely explored in any great detail in cinema and the movie covers and explores many sensitive topics with such skill.It is also a movie full of sensuality and tenderness. When Karim goes to Morocco with Farid we see a part of the country and culture rarely seen. And through Karim, Farid and all his interviewees in 'Tarik El Hob', a sensitive and powerful masculinity and culture rarely explored in cinema. For this avid moviegoer this film was groundbreaking. A must see.