Unicorns: Intercultural love story explores secret LGBTQ+ world

A love story between a white, heterosexual, working-class mechanic and a South Asian Muslim drag queen sheds light on an underground LGBTQ+ subculture.

The feature film “Unicorns” takes the viewer into the heart of the extremely mysterious so-called “gaysian” scene – a combination of the words “gay” and “Asian” – and introduces its glamorous drag queens.

“Many of the queens hide their sexual orientation and only have a certain number of hours on the weekend in which they can really be themselves. Many use pseudonyms and have been ostracized by their families,” says Sally El Hosaini, who made the film with her partner James Krishna Floyd.

“On the surface, the gay scene is extremely colorful and very attractive, but underneath it is a very raw, real and quite tough world,” Floyd added.

“They are a minority within a minority… they are attacked and rejected from all sides, by mainstream culture, largely by South Asian communities, largely by their religious communities and also by the mainstream LGBTQ+ community.”

Floyd, who also wrote the screenplay, said he and El Hosaini – who is half Welsh and half Egyptian – wanted to explore “fluid identities”.

“For me personally, as a half-Indian, half-English person with sexually flexible experiences… mainstream culture always puts us all into very nice little boxes,” he said.

“I find it very frustrating and just so limiting.”

He said he had “always known about the gay scene” but it was his friend Asifa Lahore who really brought it to his attention. In 2014, she became the first Muslim drag queen in Britain to speak publicly about her work.

Lahore is the producer of the film.

“Everything in the film is based either on Asifa’s experiences, my own experiences or on South Asian drag queens who I now know very well – it all comes from reality,” Floyd said.

Ashiq (played by Jason Patel) works in a shop during the day but transforms into drag queen Aysha at night and dances for a predominantly South Asian LGBTQ+ audience.

The love story begins when single dad and mechanic Luke (played by Bohemian Rhapsody and former EastEnders actor Ben Hardy) stumbles upon an underground club where Aysha is performing and they kiss before he realises she is a drag queen.

Patel, who plays Aysha, is not a drag queen in real life, but many of the supporting actors are.

After a casting call on social media, El Hosaini and Floyd were sent audition videos by a number of South Asian drag queens.

“Many of these tapes were very moving,” said El Hosaini.

“Some of them said things like, ‘I don’t care if I get this role… the fact that this type of character exists and that it exists makes me feel seen,'” she said.

“Someone had recorded his tape in a bathroom and was speaking very quietly because his family was in the house and he didn’t want to be overheard.”

“It was another moment that reminded us why we are making this film,” Floyd added.

“If we made this film for anyone, it was for the gay community… because there has never been a film made about them, let alone a feature film.”

Floyd and El Hosaini, who live in London and have a son together, met when Floyd starred in El Hosaini’s directorial debut, “My Brother the Devil.”

“Unicorns” is Floyd’s directorial debut and the pair’s third collaboration.

What is it like to make a film with your partner?

“We met at work, so this creative connection existed before our relationship,” said El Hosaini.

“When you do what we do and are so committed, we are a support and a rock for each other.”

She said Floyd started working on “Unicorns” nine years ago, so the project is “the same age as our son, so basically like a child who grew up in our family.”

“Coming together to do this together just felt organic and the right thing to do,” she added.

El Hosaini, whose mother is Welsh and whose father is Egyptian, was born in Swansea, grew up in Cairo and returned to Wales at 16 to study at UWC Atlantic College in the Vale of Glamorgan.

Unicorns has been supported by Ffilm Cymru Wales and will have a special screening at the Green Man Festival in Powys next month.

“The industry often saw my Egyptian side and perceived me as an Arab, so I was sent many projects that always had an Arab connection,” said El Hosaini.

“But I’m as much Welsh as I am Arab, it’s definitely in my bones, in my blood, it’s part of me, and I think it’s just time I did my Welsh projects.”

Floyd said they were both frustrated with the limited selection of stories that make it to the cinema and wanted to change that.

“This industry is not very friendly to minorities and it is certainly not friendly to minorities within minorities,” he said.

“There is such an imbalance. How many more films do we need to make about – and I can say this as a half-white man – privileged, white, middle-class, cis and heteronormative men? Do we need more of that? No, we don’t.”

He said one of the great things about storytelling is that it can “shed a little light on those communities that we don’t really hear about.”

“There is more that unites us than divides us,” added El Hosaini

“Unicorns” is now in cinemas in the UK and Ireland.