Last month, London hosted its 23rd Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, and Ctrl.Alt.Shift took the opportunity to catch up with Shamim Sarif to talk about her film 'I Can't Think Straight'. It's a movie that somehow manages to juggle women coming to terms with their sexuality, Middle Eastern politics and religious and cultural taboos, and still end up as a romantic comedy with comic relief from Goodness Gracious Me's Nina Wadia.

The film itself is partly set in London, which is portrayed as a place where homosexuality is widely accepted, in stark contrast to the Middle East. I began by asking her whether equal rights were now a reality in London, or whether there was still more to be done: "Issues still exist in the West," she made clear, "but in the movie the contrast is with the Middle East, where it's really not even acknowledged. Things like civil ceremonies or gay rights in terms of law are not even discussed. I guess by comparison being in the West is quite liberal. At the end of the day you can come up against a lot of stuff but you've always got to recourse to some kind of legal and political system."

She added that when writing the story, the character's internal barriers were as important as external cultural ones: "For me, it's interesting to see how the way you're brought up, and the cultural taboos that are drummed into you from a very young age, can really be hard to cast off. The biggest issue for the characters is not concerns about being disinherited or losing their families, it's about coming to terms with themselves. Overcoming those kinds of things is the biggest obstacle, not only in terms of homosexuality, in terms of anything you care to name. We're often brought up with a certain set of perceptions which it doesn't do any harm to question every now and then" she laughs, "Or even daily."

Sarif certainly wants to challenge her audience's preconceptions, but she says that her intention was not solely to make a campaigning film: "I wanted to make the point that you can have a story where the lead love story just happens to be a homosexual love story, but that it shouldn't have to be confined to a gay audience. The film is an attempt to make a story that anybody can relate to. I mean, I'll go and see a romantic comedy with Julia Roberts and Clive Owen, and I don't come out and say 'That was a very heterosexual love story'. It's not an issue. You either identify with the characters, empathise with them and care whether they are together or not, or you don't."

In a world where shows like 'The Wire' feature prominent homosexual characters without being pigeonholed as 'Gay TV', Sarif argues that homosexuality can become more and more mainstream: "It would be great to live in a world where we don't ever have to have a Gay and Lesbian Film Festival because these kinds of films get a general release as a matter of course, if they’re good," she says.

"With 'I Can't Think Straight' it's a bit disingenuous to say that it's not about homosexuality, of course it is, but I think there are a lot of other levels to it; there are political and cultural levels. But at its core I think it's about being true to yourself, and understanding that being at ease with yourself is the way to find a strong relationship, rather than in some romantic comedies where you're waiting for someone to come and rescue you and make everything better."

She says that she drew on her own experiences with her Palestinian partner Hanan Kattan, for some of the cultural and religious background, and of course the politics: "Because we were portraying an Arab family, and a Palestinian family in particular, it would have been crazy to leave out the subject of Israel and Palestine. For Arab families it is a topic of conversation that is always, always there. There is no way you have a dinner without bringing it up. I was also quite surprised by the way some upper class, well-educated Palestinians that I've come into contact with talked about Israelis and Jews, quite shocking levels of anti-Israeli sentiment, which is understandable on one level but you wonder where the peace settlement begins, if it can't begin with those who at least aren't suffering in refugee camps. I wanted to explore that side of Arab life, and also show the difference between those extreme views and the much more moderate view which tries to find a way through."

Balancing all the issues in the film is quite an achievement, and certainly makes for a more interesting perspective on relationships than the average Hollywood star-vehicle, while still being funny and light in all the right places. Sarif says she's been delighted by the response the film has got, from audiences of all backgrounds: "People who were excited about it weren't necessarily homosexual; it was just the journey the characters went on. It's won various awards and had a life outside the gay and lesbian audience, and I hope that continues to grow."