After inviting death penalty for his film on gay Muslims, Parvez Sharma tells Tinaz Nooshian he's unsure how long peace will last after it's screened today.

Parvez Sharma asks if the photographs he has mailed are good enough. "Hi-res, shot professionally?" And that's not because he's vain, he quickly clarifies.

"When you are gay, making a film about them, and stressing on identity, showing your face is important," he says.

Face To Face: Qasim, a homosexual from Lucknow discusses homosexuality with Syed Kalbe Jawad, one of the most prominent clerics and authorities on Shia Islam outside Iran

Being unapologetic about who he is, always came easily to the gay Muslim filmmaker.

As a 17-year-old broadcast journalist in Delhi, he came out when being gay wasn't hip.

He says his mother died angry, his father is still upset. Reactions back home are sweeping, he admits.

And that's possibly the reason why he's anxiously waiting to see how India's Muslims perceive A Jihad for Love, a documentary that unravels stories of the most unlikely storytellers: lesbian and gay Muslims in India, Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt and Iran.
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Being gay wasn't a problem in New York where he taught at an American university, but after 9/11, being Muslim became a problem.

The film stemmed from the desire to give a voice to Muslims like him, those with a deep faith in a religion that outwardly rejected them.

Filmed in 12 countries over six years, his film pits clerics who claim, "Homosexuality is punishable in Islam by death.

The only difference between the jurists is how the person (offender) must be killed", against middle-aged Arab lesbian lovers, as one of them introduces the other to her mother.
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And then there is an openly gay Imam from Johannesburg in love with a Hindu from India all individuals most of us don't believe exist, like the organisations and online support groups Sharma networked through, including a community of LBTQ women in Lebanon, and Bint el Nas, a site for gay Arab women, whose latest edit reads: "There are so many forces working against us seeing our own beauty, so many voices saying that we don't exist, that we're ugly. But we are so f**king beautiful."u00a0

You've said you were careful about making a film that reflected a positive attitude towards your faith.
It draws from the love and positivity of the people who feature in it. It's not about Qasab's jihad or his variety of Islam. And so, it's important that Muslims in India watch it.