Muslim gay filmmaker Parvez Sharma has traveled the world to uncover the lives and struggles of his faith’s most unlikely storytellers: lesbian and gay Muslims. Sharma and producer Sandi DuBowski (producer-director of the award-winning Trembling Before G-d, which looked at homosexuality among Orthodox Jews) spent over 5 years making this documentary and journeyed to 12 countries to track down their subjects. Having first screened at Frameline26 as a 20-minute work-in-progress under the working title In the Name of Allah, A Jihad for Love is now a feature-length film that comes from the heart of Islam.

As the camera captures their stories, the film’s gay and lesbian characters emerge in all their human complexity, giving the viewer an honest rendering of their lives while challenging our assumptions about a monolithic Muslim community. Their pursuit of love has brought them into conflict with their countries, families and even themselves. Such is the quandary of being both homosexual and Muslim — a combination so taboo that very little about it has been documented until now.

The international chorus of gay and lesbian Muslims brought together by A Jihad for Love doesn’t seek to vilify or reject Islam, but rather to negotiate a new relationship to it. In doing so, the film’s extraordinary subjects point the way for all of us to move beyond the hostile, war-torn present and toward a more hopeful future.