Events Calendar

For the launch of our South Asian Heritage Month season, we travel back to 1960’s Pakistan with a special preview screening of Fawzia Mirza’s vibrant debut feature 'The Queen of My Dreams' which previously screened at TIFF and SXSW. The film will be introduced by Dr Kulraj Phullar.

Azra, a queer Pakistani woman living in Toronto, is worlds apart from her conservative Muslim mother. When her father suddenly dies on a trip home to Pakistan, Azra flies to her ancestral home to be reunited with her grieving mother Mariam (Nimra Bucha – Polite Society), with whom she has a strained relationship. Struggling to fit in with Mariam’s image of the perfect daughter, Azra is transported – through Bollywood-inspired flashbacks – to 1960s Karachi, sparking a connection between her mother’s wild youth, and her own world in ’90s Canada, boosted by their shared love for Bollywood star Sharmila Tagore.

Writer-director Fawzia Mirza’s energetic first feature explores the chasm between individual desires and cultural expectations. Fluidly and convincingly slipping between time periods, with sequences of vivid Technicolor reminiscent of the era’s Bollywood cinema.

English & Urdu with English Subtitles

Toronto International Film Festival 2023
BFI London Film Festival 2023
SXSW 2023

Director’s Statement:
'The Queen of My Dreams is a dramedy spanning 30 years in the life of a Pakistani-Canadian family. It’s an exploration of the intergenerational connections between mothers and daughters, East and West, home and away, infused with humor, romance, music and Bollywood fantasy. Inspired by personal experiences, some of my mother’s stories, intertwined with Pakistani history and collective memory. The film shows the expansive journey of women, seeking to define and decide their own paths, while simultaneously learning – and remembering – how to love. And it explores the question I find myself asking in all my work, “How do we become who we are?”