Intersex love story shown at Norwich film festival

Only Love Matters was released in October

A "ground-breaking" love story featuring intersex lead characters has been screened at a specialist film festival.

Only Love Matters, which shines a light on issues faced by intersex people, was shown at Norwich Queer International Festival of Film on Friday.

The film's director Dr Kamran Qureshi carried out extensive research on the intersex community.

He said he hoped it had given intersex people a "voice and representation".

"Intersex" refers to people born with a reproductive or sexual anatomy that does not fit typical binary notions of male or female bodies.

The United Nations estimates between 0.05% and 1.7% of babies around the world are born with intersex traits.

However, the Clinical Advisory Network on Sex and Gender - a group of UK and Ireland-based clinicians who are calling for greater understanding of the effects of sex and gender in healthcare - said there were no sexual ambiguities in 99.98% of babies.

'Very important subject'

Dr Qureshi, an award-winning director and lecturer at Solent University in Southampton, said he was shocked the subject had been ignored by British cinema.

"I have recently directed a ground-breaking, critically acclaimed, romantic feature, the first film in cinema history to have lead intersex characters set in Britain... Only Love Matters," he said.

"British cinema is one of the oldest cinemas in the world and I still cannot believe that we have not done any film at all on this subject.

"It is a very important subject."

The film, released in October, follows a young woman's quest to find romance and the sacrifices of an intersex mother for her adopted daughter.

Part of the film depicts the story of an intersex woman from Rajasthan, India, who migrated to England, aged 18.