At the 40th Lovers Film Festival, FRED Film Radio interviewed director Muneeb Hassan to talk about “All the Men I Met but Never Dated”, a short film presented at the International Short Film Competition.

“All the Men I Met but Never Dated” deals with balancing queer identity with one’s spiritual identity. Is that a process the director had to go through as well? “I think it’s just within yourself if you practice a religion. This is something between you and your God and if you separate that you’re good to go”, says Muneeb Hassan. “There are no problems within finding yourself, whoever you are. It’s just a matter of you and your God”.

The director lives in the United States. As a member of the queer community, is he concerned about the climate of hatred that the Trump administration has spread in the country? “We had Trump four years ago and for four years. People survived. I think people will still survive as long as there’s a resistance because if there’s then they will stop. That’s pretty much all”, says Muneeb Hassan. “It’s all about how you perceive it since we live in the major cities. It doesn’t really affect that much, but if you go on a federal level sometimes it does”.

There are many clichés that crowd queer cinema, losing the possibility of making films and TV series capable of showing believable characters and stories. “I think America is way behind in terms of putting up queer cinema because everything starts with sex and ends in the sex. There’s a third person in the relationship. I think it doesn’t connect with the majority of American audiences”, explains Muneeb Hassan. “The one film that I think that did change the stereotypes and the ideology of American people was Call Me By Your Name. A lot of people connected to it on a bigger level in America, as well with Brokeback Mountain and Moonlight. They were cinematic gems. But if you see other films you know they are just very extremely loud for no reason. And it just gives gags and laughs to a very small community but not on a larger scale which is kind of a problem. We have to create stories that would relate to the bigger audience”.

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