“There‘s only one Imam: Silvana Imam!“ Rapper Silvana always says this provocative statement to her audience, filled with the kind of aggressive energy that only a person who has been deprived of a place in society for their entire life can muster. Silvana Imam, the lesbian daughter of a Syrian father and a Lithuanian mother, immigrated to Sweden with her family as a small child and has had to justify herself ever since. For her ethnicity, her too-short blonde hair as a child, her feelings, her appearance – even for her anti-racist lyrics. She gathers all of these experiences together as a musician and throws it back at heteronormative society. Whether it‘s her rapping about destroying the patriarchy while wearing a pussy riot mask or bringing up the suffering of Syrian refugees. Silvana is a person that has something to say and she doesn‘t let anyone take that away from her.

The film is just as expressive as the non-conformist musician is when she performs. A series of home videos, festival appearances, and backstage scenes are loosely strung together which show Silvana as a highly emotional, driven person. But SILVANA is also a romance. If you‘re not moved while watching the first shy advances on the already established singer Beatrice Eli, you probably don‘t have a heart. The images of numerous young, mostly female fans that see Silvana and Beatrice as empowering role models that they themselves never had are even more touching. They aren‘t alone anymore in their otherness and feelings, making the music portrait a political statement as well: there‘s only one Silvana Imam, but there are many that feel like her – and demand to have the right to finally be allowed to be as they are.

Katharina Franck

Translation: Elinor Lewy