Trailer for A Sinner in Mecca.
Openly gay and a devout Muslim, Parvez Sharma embarks on a perilous pilgrimage to Mecca hoping to find an answer to this most personal question: is it possible for someone like him to be a good Muslim? Director of 2008’s A Jihad for Love, which documents the lives of LGBT Muslims, Sharma turns the camera on himself in his latest film. A journey full of dangers—homosexuality is punishable by imprisonment, corporal punishment, fines and even death—A Sinner in Mecca is not only a fascinating personal essay on a gay Muslim’s inner-most struggles, but a captivating portrait of contemporary Islam. “As an adult, my relationship to conventional Islam has never been easy,” Sharma says in the film. “Islam is at war with itself and I have fought hard to not be a casualty.”