Seyran Ates: Sex, Revolution And Islam review – Tracing the long fight for freedom from patriarchy

It is not hard to imagine that Seyran Ates, a bisexual Muslim, feminist and lawyer, has fatwas issued against her. Addressing this right at the outset, the documentary Seyran Ates: Sex, Revolution And Islam by Turkish-Norwegian writer and filmmaker Nefise Özkal Lorentzen begins with the staggeringly vicious online abuse that the activist is subjected to every day.

Fighting for a more inclusive space for women within Islam, Ates founded the Ibn Rushd-Goethe mosque, the first liberal place of worship, which opened its doors to the LGBTQ community, earning the ire of conservative practitioners of the faith.

With the provocative title of her book, Islam Needs a Sexual Revolution, Ates explains that her fight is not against Islam but against patriarchy, likening the prohibitions on women to slavery. However, Ates finds herself in a strange predicament where she is criticized by left liberals as well as the right wing for her work.

Lorentzen traces the journey of the civil-rights activist in the intimate space of her home, where we learn about her humble beginnings and her own struggle with the shackles that religion and patriarchy sought to put on her.

Demanding equal rights for Muslim women and girls, her personal experiences took the shape of a larger political struggle that eventually became the mainstay of her life. Through archival footage and family photographs, her childhood and circumstances are conjured, and we are transported to the milieu of her formative years.

The documentary moves beyond Ates’s work to focus on her responses as a Muslim in a world that is becoming increasingly polarized against Islam. In light of the radicalization of young people from the community, Ates emphasizes the need for more progressive mosques which can address the disillusionment and loss of identity that so many young people face.

Lorentzen covers a lot of ground, taking us from the personal story of Ates’s nephew and his transformation to discussions with sex workers in a brothel in Germany to young LGBTQ Uyghurs, even interviewing female imams in China and highlighting their role within the community. Although these are crucial issues, the second half tends to lose steam in tracing them out.

However, in positioning Ates’s work in the contemporary, Lorentzen makes a powerful statement of peace, a lodestar in today’s times. For Ates, to do nothing is not a choice and despite the warnings, the abuse and the threats, she soldiers on, hoping to create a better world. In one powerful scene, she shouts ‘Freedom’ repeatedly. It’s time for the world to sit up and listen.

Seyran Ates: Sex, Revolution And Islam was screened at the 13th Kashish Mumbai International Queer Film Festival.