Parvez Sharma

Early life

Sharma grew up in India, where he studied English Literature at Presidency College of the University of Calcutta. He received his master's degrees in Mass Communication (Film and Television) from Jamia Millia Islamia University, Broadcast Journalism from the University of Wales, Cardiff, and Video from American University's School of Communication. He moved to the United States in 2000.

Career

As a commentator on Islamic, racial and political issues, Sharma's writings have appeared on The Huffington Post, The Daily Beast and The Guardian.

In 2009 Sharma reported about the aborted Green Movement in Iran using firsthand accounts and interviews with friends in Tehran and often giving readers of The Huffington Post and The Daily Beast a look into the workings of the uprising.

In early 2011 Sharma blogged about the revolution in Egypt, providing a local perspective on the events. He spoke about the nature and extent of social media influence in the Middle East to press across the world, including interviews with newspapers in China, including the South China Morning Post and interviews on various US networks including CNBC, MSNBC and FOX News.

Sharma continues to be a commentator on Islamic, racial and political issues. In 2009 Sharma wrote the foreword for the anthology Islam and Homosexuality (Praeger, 2009). He was interviewed and his work was profiled in journalist Robin Wrights book 'Rock the Casbah: Rage and Rebellion in the Middle East'. His work on the Arab Spring was profiled in author Cole Strykers book 'Hacking the Future: Privacy, Identity and Anonymity on the Web'. In 2007 he wrote a chapter for the book Gay Travels in the Muslim World.

The US-based OUT Magazine named Sharma, one of the OUT 100 twice for 2008 and 2015- "one of the 100 gay men and women who have helped shape our culture during the year". In 2016 a year after Larry Kramer Sharma won the Monette Horowitz award given to individuals and organizations for their significant contributions toward eradicating homophobia.

In his early career he has worked on programming for BBC World Television (India), the Discovery Channel (United States), and the World Bank (United States).

Sharma is currently working on the book version of A Sinner in Mecca. As an author Sharma is represented by literary agency Sterling Lord Literistic.

A Jihad for Love and A Sinner in Mecca

Sharma is best known for directing the films A Jihad for Love and A Sinner in Mecca. A Jihad for Love is a documentary that seeks to refute the belief that LGBT Muslims do not exist. The film has also been known by the working title In the Name of Allah.

Sharma, director and cinematographer of the film, came up with the idea after listening to the stories of gay Muslims when he attended American University. He decided to give a voice "to a community that really needed to be heard, and that until now hadn’t been. It was about going where the silence was strongest."

The film premiered in 2007 at the Toronto International Film Festival and in 2008 at the Berlinale. It went on to premier at more than a hundred film festivals globally and was released in theaters in the US and Canada in 2008 by First Run Features and Mongrel Media. It was produced by Sandi Simcha DuBowski in association with Channel 4 Television (UK), ZDF (Germany), Arte (France), MTV-Logo (US), The Sundance Documentary Fund and SBS. While the film reveals homophobia and persecution in the Muslim world, Sharma has stated that the purpose of the film is not to vilify Islam. In an early interview he said:

By 2011, Sharma had conducted live events and screenings of A Jihad for Love in many Muslim nations and capitals ranging from Beirut, Lebanon and Istanbul, Turkey, to Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. In Indonesiathe world’s largest Muslim nation, the film did an 8-city tour to acclaim and also protests. : a multi city tour in Mexican theaters organized by Ambulante used the film as a tool for advocacy in deeply religious communities in that country. The film also thrived underground, with private screenings of smuggled DVDs. In July 2009 Sharma conducted workshops on Islam and homosexuality with German parliamentarians in Berlin and was invited to screen and workshop A Jihad for Love by the European Union.Sharma was first profiled by The New York Times in 2004 which said "Given the hostility toward homosexuality in some Islamic factions, Mr. Sharma has gone to great lengths to reassure many of his interview subjects that they will remain anonymous."

With his second film, A Sinner in Mecca, The New York Times ran a second feature profile feature on Sharma on September 24, 2015, saying "The documentary, largely recorded on an iPhone strapped to Mr. Sharma’s neck with rubber bands, shows the pilgrimage in unflinching detail. The result is a religious reality film, but also a piercing indictment of Saudi Arabia" The piece also used clips from A Sinner in Mecca The film premiered in Toronto at the 2015 HotDocs Canadian Film Festival and opened in theaters in the US on September 4, 2015. In 2016, A Sinner in Mecca won a RapidLion for Best Documentary Feature. A Sinner in Mecca has received a lot of press and audience attention but also lead to online abuse, death threats and hate mail. The film premiered in Canada on CBC's The Passionate Eye on October 10, 2015. It premiered on Arte in France and ZDF in Germany on November 6. The film was acquired by Netflix in October 2015 and is also available on iTunes.

A Jihad for Love was widely written about with The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, the Houston Chronicle, The Guardian, The Times of London, the Independent, Der Speigel, Stern, Newsweek, The Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star, Variety, Hollywood Reporter, Screen International, BBC, CNN, PBS, SBS, ZDF, CBC, National Public Radio, al-Arabiya and hundreds of other media outlets, writing about and profiling Sharma’s work. In 2008 he was variously hailed as a “gifted filmmaker” (Wall Street Journal), “frankly brave” (NPR), “provocative” (San Francisco Chronicle), and “an apostate” (South Africa’s Muslim Judicial Council). He has been interviewed on more than 200 radio stations worldwide.

Even though both his films were banned in Singapore and parts of the Middle East and led to theological condemnation in many countries, Sharma is a leading spokesperson on defending Islam yet being able to speak for urgent reform, as a Muslim. He has conducted more than 200 live events across the world, talking about Islam and, in part, its relation to homosexuality.

Early career

Parvez Sharma worked as television journalist in India and the United Kingdom, including for India's 24-hour news television network NDTV. A journalist, Sharma has worked in radio, print, and broadcast. He also worked with the Democracy Now! in New York as a producer; and as a print journalist in India and the US. He has taught as an adjunct professor at American University, developing and teaching that university's first curriculum on Bollywood and other Indian cinemas.

His piece "Emerging from the Shadows" for The Statesman in India was the country's first major newspaper article to discuss the life of Indian lesbians.

He was involved in the organization of the first organized LGBT effort in the state of West Bengal and has spoken internationally on LGBT issues, Human rights violations across the world and the crisis in 21st century Islam.

Inspirational and Activist Speaker

Sharma has been a featured speaker at more than 40 college campuses in the U.S., which include Stanford, Berkeley, Yale, Columbia, NYU, Harvard, Syracuse, Northwestern and the University of Chicago. He toured several US Southern States in 2009 and called it his “Bible Belt Tour” speaking directly to issues around LGBT rights (or the lack thereof) within conservative Christian communities.

In 2009 Sharma was invited as a keynote speaker to the United Nations at the Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy during Durban Review Conference. The same year he also addressed one of the world’s largest gatherings of LGBT activists at the Gay Games in Copenhagen. He was invited by the Foreign Services Institute of the US Department of State as a keynote speaker in Washington, D.C. on June 21, 2012. The event was called "The Rights of LGBT Persons in the Middle East and South and Central Asia." On December 20, 2012, he conducted a day-long workshop with officials from the USCIS in the Department of Homeland Security.

As a speaker he is represented by The Lavin Agency.