Sometimes, you can’t control who you fall in love with. In Shamim Sarif’s new queer Palestinian-Canadian film, Polarized, the director explores exactly this. The movie, shot against the prairie landscapes of Manitoba, follows two women – Lisa (Holly Deveaux) and Dalia (Maxine Denis) – as they figure out how they fit in each other’s lives.
Dalia, a proud Palestinian Muslim agricultural business owner, is due to get married to her husband. Her employee, Lisa, is dealing with the fallout of losing her family farm to medical bills, and the crushing expectations of her evangelical Christian household.
As religious and cultural tensions rise between their rural hometown communities, Lisa and Dalia find themselves closer than ever before. But, when a shared moment between the two threatens to undo all that they’ve worked for, both women must reassess what love and survival looks like.
“[Polarized] is a contained love story in one small town. But I’m always drawn to universal themes and bigger political backdrops in my stories – which, in Polarized, is contemporary North America
