A Film Review - Trailblazers, 2024, Cardiff University, dir. Sobia Bushra, prod. Ronan Williams
Instagram: @trailblazers.film
Trailblazers is set for premiere at Chapter Arts Centre in Cardiff, Wales, on the 29th of September at 7.30PM. Tickets to the premiere will be live soon. Follow @trailblazers.film on Instagram to be the first to know!
In a dimly-lit room, a DJ prepares for their set. Over at the bar, the bartender prepares a customer’s drink, placing a red-white straw in an icey half-pint glass. We don’t see anyone’s faces just yet – just their expressive clothing, the movement of hands, an exquisite spectrum of kicks. A quiet excitement hangs in the air before the ballroom performance begins – cheering, chanting builds as someone introduces us to the set on a microphone.
Bristol
The Fruitea Ball
Trailblazers is a documentary about Asian Purrrsuasion, the Welsh Ballroom community, and being a queer South Asian in Wales today.
Sobia Bushra’s documentary is a monumental film following the co-founders of Asian Purrrsuasion (Alia Milan, Muz ‘Supreme’ Razman, and Aiman Rahim) – who use this space to simply speak about themselves. Of finding liberation from life’s difficulties in community, performance, and self-expression.
Through individual interviews and visually-stunning moments with the trio, we follow a story - their stories, of ballroom and Asian Purrrsuasion. We’re thrust into fast-paced and upbeat moments, dipped into the slow and harsh realities of difference, then communally rejoicing in the presence of freedom, community, and love.
The film, and the work of Asian Purrrsuasian, highlights the issues faced by queerness, loneliness, and difference in a normative society. We learn about modern-day ballroom, the multitudes of performance, and how Alia, Aiman, and Muz work today to inspire, fight, and trailblaze for South Asian queer communities. Though we might have to leave our childhood caregivers and family behind, despite our difficulties to connect with our generational cultures we can find them again in each other.
All while enjoying some energetic dancing, graceful couture, and dynamic cinematography.
Alia Ramna and Muz Razman are the first we’re introduced to. While Aiman enters around halfway through the short film, they have perhaps the most quotable things to say…
“I want South Asians, especially queer South Asians, to know that they don’t need to run away from their culture in order to be queer.”
Muz also quotes Beyonce:
“if they’re not giving you a space on stage, you build your own.”
Occupy space - says Trailblazers - and fill it with friends, new family, and celebration. That, and much more.
We’re shown those personal moments where reality hits, when you get back to your someone-else’s home, when bills have to be paid and moths flutter out of your wallet, when we have to sit in lonely silence with our mountain of problems. But Bushra picks us back up, puts us into the joys and nerves of performance, and reminds us that we’re not alone.
These moments pull at those infamous heartstrings, not simply because the all-too-common realities of financial difficulties are wantonly unjust, but because we as the audience are allowed to glide from one moment to the next – but Muz, our guide through this particular melancholy, cannot jump-cut to the crowd of a club (in full glam, dressed to the gods) as we do in this film. None of us can.
But what Bushra does in these moments is incredibly therapeutic. We’re shown that, despite the moments of suffering, we can still find our joy over the horizon.
At the same time, Bushra shows us a real problem: financial insecurity, houselessness, alienation, and a lack of community among queer folks – among QTIPOC, people without safety, or that familial connection that can be so vital in times of financial difficulty.
But all of this is just one aspect of Trailblazers, and of Asian Purrrsuasion’s work. This film gives us the ability to self-reflect on our communities, what we can do to support each other. And perhaps most importantly, a chance to feel emotions that you might have pushed down in order to survive.
Trailblazers is a work that will inspire you to keep fighting. And, uniquely, shows us how three living legends fight for us today.
Trailblazers is set for premiere at Chapter Arts Centre in Cardiff, Wales, on the 29th of September at 7.30PM. Tickets to the premiere will be live soon. Follow @trailblazers.film on instagram to be the first to know!
Follow the people involved in the film:
Aiman Rahim: @a_imx_n
Alia Ramna: @alia_aila_milan
Muz ‘Supreme’ Razman: @supreme__milan
Asian Purrrsuasion: @asianpurrrrrsuasion
Welsh Ballroom Community: @welshballroomcommunity
The Queer Emporium: @thequeeremporium
Music by B. Ames: @b.ames
Directed by Sobia Bushra Produced by Ronan Williams
With support from Cardiff University
Review by Dorian Rose
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