The Power of Identity and Cinema: A Conversation with Ian Iqbal Rashid
Imagine stepping into a kaleidoscope of stories where art, identity, and family intertwine. Welcome to our latest conversation with writer‑director and poet Ian Iqbal Rashid. In this episode of the Sexuality and Identity podcast, host Shireen Ashton sits down with Ian Iqbal Rashid to explore his landmark film Touch of Pink, the personal experiences that shaped it, and the evolving landscape of South Asian representation onscreen. What unfolds is a vivid testament to resilience, creativity, and the power of storytelling to forge connections across cultures.
Rashid begins by recounting the serendipitous journey of Touch of Pink, a script he penned in the ’90s without imagining it would ever hit the screen. Working as a television writer in London, he treated the screenplay as a calling card until a Canadian production company unexpectedly decided to make his passion project a reality. What followed was a fraught but rewarding financing quest, a Sundance premiere in 2004, and distribution by Sony Pictures Classics. This achievement still surprises him over two decades later as audiences continue to rediscover the film’s blend of romantic comedy and fantasy.
Delving deeper, Rashid shares how Touch of Pink is, at its heart, a tribute to his mother. Fleeing to Canada as an asylum seeker in the 1970s, his parents worked around the clock, leaving him to convalesce alone on sick days. Those afternoons watching Doris Day classics like That Touch of Mink revealed a side of his mother’s youthful dreams, an imagination of a Hollywood romance she never fulfilled. Rashid weaves this real-life longing into his story, complete with the spectral charm of Cary Grant, portrayed onscreen by Kyle MacLachlan.
The conversation shifts to the nature of Touch of Pink. Released in 2004, it featured a queer South Asian protagonist navigating love and community, a rarity at the time. Rashid reflects on his inspiration from My Beautiful Laundrette as a young man and the significance of seeing a gay brown man on screen. He emphasises how the film tenderly tackles not only a son’s coming‑out journey but also his mother’s path to acceptance within a close‑knit Ismaili Muslim community, where appearances and gossip once held him back.
Rashid then recounts a particularly poignant memory of an anniversary screening he almost skipped. Initially bracing for confrontation, garnered from earlier hate mail and a community boycott, he arrived to find dozens of Ismaili viewers holding up DVD copies and sharing how the film had saved them. In that moment, he realised that Touch of Pink had transcended entertainment, becoming a lifeline for those yearning to see themselves represented and accepted.
Turning to the broader industry, Rashid charts the slow but steady rise of South Asian talent in film and television. He remembers the excitement generated by Bend It Like Beckham and East Is East, only to see the momentum stall. Yet, since 2020 and the ripple effects of Black Lives Matter, he’s witnessed a genuine shift in competitive bids for projects, more diverse stories greenlit, and a sense of urgency among emerging writers of colour demanding authentic representation.
Rashid’s own trajectory exemplifies this change. Fresh off three acclaimed seasons of the Peabody‑winning series Sort Of which centers a queer South Asian Muslim trans character, he’s now developing ambitious new works. In the UK, he’s adapting Nobel laureate Abdulrazak Gurnah’s Afterlives, a novel tracing East Africa’s colonial history. Back in Canada, he’s partnering with comedian Ali Hassan on a comedy series, and scripting a drama about the 1982 Toronto bathhouse raids through the eyes of a gay South Asian immigrant forced into the closet.
Throughout the episode, Rashid’s warmth and honesty shine. He celebrates the hundreds of messages from viewers, from Hasidic Jews to rural Americans, whose lives were touched by his work. He acknowledges lingering challenges like funding hurdles, conservative backlash, but remains hopeful, buoyed by the fearless creativity of a new generation demanding to see themselves on screen.
Ready to be inspired by Ian Iqbal Rashid’s remarkable journey?
Tune in now to hear the full conversation, explore the stories behind Touch of Pink and Sort Of, and discover what’s next for one of today’s most visionary creators and share this episode with anyone who believes in the transformative power of storytelling.
Produced by Global Indian Series for the Global Indian Network.
Script by Rajan Nazran
original idea: Rajan Nazran
Podcast Host: Shireen Ashton
Introduction music: (Sound Title) – by Steven F Allen
https://freesound.org/people/audiomirage/
https://soundclick.com/AuDioChosisStevenFAllenAuDioMiRage
About Ian Iqbal Rashid
Ian Iqbal Rashid is a filmmaker, television writer-producer, and poet whose work spans critically acclaimed television and cinema. He was a key writer and executive producer across all three seasons of the Peabody Award-winning series Sort Of (CBC/HBO Max). He contributed to the success of the UK cult classic This Life (BBC), which earned both BAFTA and Royal Television Society awards. His film directing credits include Touch of Pink and How She Move, both of which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and were distributed by Mongrel Media, with the former picked up by Sony Pictures Classics and the latter by Paramount.
Born in Tanzania to a Muslim Indian family, Ian holds British and Canadian citizenship. His work has garnered numerous accolades, including the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain Award for Series Writing, the British Film Institute’s Breakthrough Brit Award, and the Aga Khan Award for Excellence in the Arts. He has also been recognised with nominations for the Writers Guild of Canada and Canadian Screen Awards for comedy writing, as well as for the Sundance World Cinema Jury Prize and the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award for poetry. Touch of Pink received multiple honours at international film festivals. In 2011, the UK Film Council named him a “Breakthrough Brit” alongside notable figures like Riz Ahmed, Daniel Kaluuya, and Yann Demange.
In addition to his screen work, Ian Iqbal Rashid is the author of three critically acclaimed poetry collections. He has also curated exhibitions and film programs and played a foundational role in Canadian cultural life as the founder and inaugural director of Desh Pardesh, a pioneering festival focused on South Asian diasporic arts and activism. In 2022, he was selected for the CBC-BIPOC TV & Film Showrunner Catalyst Fellowship, an initiative in partnership with the Canadian Film Centre supporting emerging showrunners in television and streaming.
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