News

“The Sex Lives of College Girls” is back for Season 3, with some major switch ups to the core four.

While Leighton (Reneé Rapp), Whitney (Alyah Chanelle Scott), Bela (Amrit Kaur) and Kimberly (Pauline Chalamet) reunite for sophomore year, their reunion is short-lived as Rapp’s Leighton exits the series mid-season.

Meanwhile, the Max series welcomes two new cast members in Mia Rodgers and Gracie Lawrence, who play new Essex arrivals Taylor — an edgy international student — and Kacey — a transfer student who would rather spend time with her boyfriend than development friendships with Whitney, Bela and Kimberly.

For a full breakdown on which familiar faces you can expect to see in Season 3, as well as newcomers this season, keep on reading.

Photo credit: Max

Reneé Rapp as Leighton

Renée Rapp returns as Leighton Murray for a short arc before departing the series. After embracing her sexuality throughout the first two seasons,...

Exclusive: The Queer Muslim Project has revealed the six Fellows selected as part of its second cohort of the QueerFrames Screenwriting Lab, a one-of-its-kind creative incubator for emerging and early-career queer storytellers in South Asia.

This year’s Fellows come from a variety of backgrounds and creative perspectives including Anureet Watta, Ashutosh Shankar, Shubham Negi, Tejas Shende, Abdul Rehman Shah, and Samah Meghjee.

The Queer Muslim Project is Asia’s leading digital and cultural platform for queer, Muslim, and diverse voices, with a growing community of 70k+. They use art, culture, and media to challenge stereotypes, expand access for underrepresented Lgbtqia+ storytellers, and help them shape their narratives. One of its initiatives is the QueerFrames Screenwriting Lab which helps create behind-the-camera opportunities for underrepresented communities in the entertainment industry.

As part of the cohort, the Fellows will be part of an immersive program combining creative workshops, technical training, and personalized mentorship.

Updated on Wednesday, November 6 to include newly announced audience winners.

As its annual film festival winds down this weekend, the Savannah College of Art and Design (Scad) announced the award winners for the 27th annual Scad Savannah Film Festival. The event, which has become a key stop on the busy regional festival circuit leading up to the Academy Awards, this year screened 162 films, including 123 narrative feature films, 31 documentary feature films, 69 short films, and 10 world premieres and six U.S. premieres.

Out of over 2,335 submissions, nineteen awards were announced from the 105 films chosen to compete in competition categories, which included Narrative Features, Documentary Features, Professional Shorts, Animated Shorts, Documentary Shorts, Student Shorts, Shorts Spotlight, Global Shorts Forum, and the Savff Lgbtqia+ Short Film Competition presented by Amazon MGM Studios.

Taking top honors in the competition feature section include a pair of remarkable films still looking for distribution, including Michael Schwartz and...

“Gladiator” fans will get an inside look at the making of Ridley Scott’s epic sequel courtesy of a behind-the-scenes special, airing Nov. 18 on CBS (at 10:30 p.m. Et/Pt) and streaming on Paramount +.

The special, titled “The Making of Gladiator II” and produced by Paramount Pictures, is said to offer “unprecedented access encompassing all aspects of production, from the grand scope of the set — including reconstructing Ancient Rome — to characters, combat training, costumes, historical accuracy, scoring and more.”

The Paramount movie, starring Paul Mescal, continues the saga of power, intrigue and vengeance set off in the 2001 Oscar best picture-winner “Gladiator.”

“Years after witnessing the death of the revered hero Maximus at the hands of his uncle, Lucius (Mescal) is forced to enter the Colosseum after his home is conquered by the tyrannical Emperors who now lead Rome with an iron fist,” reads the film’s logline. “With...

A busy weekend at the UK and Ireland box office this weekend as Prima Facie, Lee, Speak No Evil and The Critic all launch in 550+ cinemas.

National Theatre Live’s re-release of Prima Facie is in 679 locations. The theatre production starring Jodie Comer first played in cinemas in July 2022 in 662 venues, making £1.5m in a single day.

It became the highest-grossing event cinema release at the time, ending just shy of £5m and overtaken only by Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour which made £12m on its run.

Prima Facie opened in cinemas Thursday (September 12). The one-woman play surrounds a female...

The Queen Of My Dreams

Brought together by the funeral of the husband and father they both loved, a Pakistani mother and her Canadian daughter connect through their shared love of Bollywood romances and discover that they have more in common than they realised. Fawzia Mirza’s The Queen Of My Dreams is one of the biggest festival hits of the past year, playing at Toronto, London, Leeds, SXSW, BFI Flare and Frameline, among others, and now it’s getting a UK-wide cinema release. I was delighted to get the chance to chat with the director and to ask her about the process of bringing it to the screen, starting with the short of the same name that she made 12 years ago.

“I made a short film called The Queen Of My Dreams in 2012,” she explains. “I made that before I was a filmmaker, so I didn't really know...

Warner Bros.’ “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” conjured a dominating £7.3 million ($9.6 million) opening weekend in the U.K. and Ireland, easily claiming the top spot at the box office, according to numbers from Comscore.

Ahimsa Entertainment’s Tamil-language film “The Greatest Of All Time” (“Goat”), starring Vijay, debuted in second place with £768,842.

Sony’s “It Ends With Us” held strong in its fifth week, landing at number three with £668,902, pushing its total to £20.1 million. Disney’s “Deadpool & Wolverine” continued to perform well in its seventh frame, adding £661,592 for a £55.9 million cume.

Rounding out the top five, Disney’s “Alien: Romulus” scared up another £570,708 in its fourth weekend, bringing its total to £12.1 million.

Universal’s “Despicable Me 4” showed staying power in sixth place, collecting £543,555 in its ninth week for a £45.7 million total. Warner Bros.’ “Blink Twice” landed in seventh with £331,425 in its third weekend, accumulating £2.62 million overall.

Disney’s “Inside Out 2” took the eighth spot,...

Mirza’s feature debut may have started with a wish to better understand her conservative Pakistani mother, but the joy it finds as it hops from 90s Canada to 60s Karachi speaks to big questions about south Asian identities

‘I made the first iteration of The Queen of My Dreams before I even knew I was a film-maker,” says Fawzia Mirza of the many years it took to direct her wildly ambitious genre-hopping, time-travelling debut feature. It all began in 2006. She was working as an actor in Chicago, and coming out as queer. She kept “trying to reconcile being queer, being Muslim, and loving Bollywood romance”, a combination that struck her then as impossible. She started work on a video art piece that reflected on Bollywood classics through a queer perspective. A friend suggested they develop it into a short film.

“That was the beginning of my love affair with the film festival space,...

Louis Theroux’s Mindhouse Behind ‘America’s New Female Right’ For BBC

Louis Theroux’s Mindhouse is making a documentary about America’s female right for the BBC. America’s New Female Right will meet a new wave of women using social media platforms and podcasts to champion extreme views on social media, including content that is increasingly shocking and anti-feminist. British journalist Layla Wright is hosting for BBC Three and will travel from Nashville to the Arizona/Mexico border, immersing herself with the ultra-conservative influencers who see themselves as on the frontline of a war against progressive politics. Wright is Creator in Residence at Theroux’s indie and has worked alongside the celebrated documentarian on the project. “I wanted to meet the women that had suddenly taken over my social media feeds posting increasingly inflammatory content – girls my age with huge online platforms who seemed nostalgic for an era where women had less rights,...

Peccadillo Pictures is proud to announce that it will release Fawzia Mirza’s award-winning feature directorial debut The Queen Of My Dreams in UK cinemas on 13th September. The film, which features outstanding performances from the entire cast, the movie’s heart lies in Mirza’s very personal look at her own family dynamics and quest for self-discovery. It’s an insightful, comedic, and moving examination of South Asian identity.

The Queen Of My Dreams is a semi-autobiographical film by writer/director Fawzia Mirza about her experiences as a queer Canadian woman of south Asian heritage.

1999, Azra (Amrit Kaur) travels from Toronto to Karachi after her father Hassan’s (Hamza Haq) sudden death, forcing her to confront her complicated relationship with her mother Mariam (Nimra Bucha).

The film flashes back to 1960s Karachi, portraying a booming, groovy period where the young Mariam (also played by Kaur) rebelliously pursues her own path in life.

Queer film fans in Los Angeles are feeling the summer void left by the beloved Outfest, which paused its programming last year amid financial issues and staff layoffs and has yet to resume. But a new film series, called Queer Rhapsody, looks to fill that crater across five venues July 19-28 — and with curation from the UCLA Film and Television Archive and one of Outfest’s former own. Even if they aren’t looking just to replace the 40-year-long legacy of L.A.’s oldest film festival. Plus, Queer Rhapsody is decidedly a series, not a festival.

With a focus on liberating narratives and a program of more than 50 narrative and documentary features and shorts, Queer Rhapsody opens at the Hammer Museum’s Billy Wilder Theater with Drew Denny’s “Second Nature.” Narrated by Elliot Page, the documentary follows trans trailblazer and evolutionary biologist Dr. Joan Roughgarden, who meets with...

Exclusive: Amrit Kaur, best known for her role as Bela Malhotra in Max’s The Sex Lives of College Girls, has signed with Buchwald.

Kaur is an actor, writer, comedian, and activist. She believes in acting as a humanitarian art form with the power to heal, transcend, and empower.

Kaur was awarded Best Actor in A Feature Film for her dual character work in The Queen of My Dreams, at the 2024 Canadian Screen Awards. Her other credits include American Gothic, Kim’s Convenience, Hudson & Rex, Nurses and The D Cut.

She also works as a company member and actor at The Gracemoon Arts Company, founded to create a humanitarian hub for artists. This month, the company is opening the largest theatre in Brooklyn, NY, with a gallery and separate open mic salon.

Kaur continues to be repped by Etm Ltd. in Canada.

As festivals have increasingly endeavored to showcase more diverse talent, benchmarks of inclusivity occasionally run the risk of feeling like a dutiful checklist.

The Bentonville Film Festival, though, has celebrated — and elevated — underrepresented voices since its inception. Returning for its 10th edition from June 10-16, the northwest Arkansas festival has always taken as its mission statement the centering of work from not only LGBTQ+ and Bipoc creators but also other historically marginalized groups.

That focus shouldn’t be surprising, given that the festival’s roots stretch back to the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, a nonprofit research organization the actor founded after noticing the disparity in female characters while watching TV series and movies with her daughter.

While co-founder Davis remains Bentonville Film Festival’s chair, president Wendy Guerrero and artistic director Drea Clark, with a combined 19 years of experience with the festival, provide stability and steerage.

“The...

‘A haunting tale of oppression’ – The Hollywood Reporter

‘A genre-bending horror movie’ – Indiewire

‘Straddles the line between a bold genre exercise and a bruising portrait of contemporary Pakistan to deliver a welcome story about resistance and resilience’ – Variety

★★★★

‘An intense psychological horror, one that tightens its vice with a slow and deliberate intensity’ – Screen Anarchy

In Flames is an incendiary horror-thriller that illuminates the psychological impact of gendered oppression and the horror of being young and in love in a fiercely patriarchal society.

After the death of the family patriarch, a mother and daughter’s precarious existence is ripped apart by figures from their past. They must find strength in each other if they are to survive the malevolent forces that threaten to engulf them.

In Flames is the feature directorial debut from award-winning writer and director Zarrar Kahn, and is produced by Anam Abbas (The Stained Dawn). Starring Ramesha Nawal,...

Matt Johnson’s BlackBerry satirical comedy earned the best movie honor at the Canadian Screen Awards on Friday, which also tapped the Canadian Indigenous TV series Little Bird as the best TV drama.

In earlier prize-giving this week, BlackBerry picked up hardware for best adapted screenplay, cinematography and a best supporting comedy performance trophy for Glenn Howerton. The fact-based feature that bowed in Berlin also awarded Johnson the best director honor, and Jay Baruchel the best comedy performance trophy.

Little Bird, which came into the Canadian film and TV awards with a field-leading 19 nominations, saw Darla Contois pick up the best TV drama performance prize after the series earlier earned trophies for best drama ensemble, best casting and best supporting drama performer for Braeden Clarke.

Little Bird, which aired on Crave in Canada and PBS stateside, follows Behzig Little Bird, who was stripped of her Indigenous identity when adopted into...

ReFrame, the Sundance Institute and Women In Film partnership to advance gender equity in the screen industries, announced in Cannes on Friday it is expanding its programme recognising gender-balanced hiring on features into Canada, the UK, Ireland, India, and Australia.

The ReFrame Stamp verifies feature productions that hire women or individuals from minority gender communities including trans, nonbinary, or gender-nonconforming individuals in at least 50% of key roles, above and below the line.

The Stamp will be accessible to producers in the five countries starting in autumn, when full international qualifying criteria will be released.

Since launching in 2017 it has been...

NewFest, a New York LGBTQ+ film and media organization, revealed the full lineup for their fourth annual NewFest Pride summer film series. NewFest’s five-day festival kicks off LGBTQ+ Pride Month from May 30 – June 3, 2024, in-person in New York and streaming throughout the United States, and will feature a mix of premieres and conversations, virtual screenings, and social events. The announcement came today from NewFest’s Executive Director David Hatkoff and Director of Programming Nick McCarthy.

“It’s no accident that this year’s NewFest Pride starts on May 30; it’s part of our not-so-secret mission to celebrate Pride 365 days a year,” said NewFest Executive Director David Hatkoff. “We can’t wait to provide a space for the community to come together for bold new films and series, thought-provoking conversations, and joyful social gatherings. This moment calls for celebration and resistance, and we intend to offer opportunities for both in equal measure.

Zoya Akhtar (The Archies), Fawzia Mirza (Queen of My Dreams), and Roshan Sethi (A Nice Indian Boy) are set to join the 1497 Features Lab as Mentors.

Returning for its fourth year, the nonprofit 1497’s annual Features Lab will once again offer robust mentorship, script development, and industry access to elevate and advance the careers of screenwriters of South Asian descent. After expanding the Lab to a fully in-person format last year, this year’s program will build on that success with an intensive Retreat and subsequent Pitch Day. The Lab Retreat will take place this October 23-28, 2024 in Malibu.

The 1497 Features Lab, their signature impact program, entails three rounds of rigorous evaluation by independent Selection Committees to ultimately discover three Mentees to invest in. Each Mentee is then paired with a pod of Mentors – comprised of an established filmmaker, producer, industry representative, and a 1497 Features Lab Alum – from whom they...

The path to paradise, so it has been foretold in Islamic scripture, is through loving and respecting one's own mother. As axiomatic yet clichéd as this sentiment may seem today, there is some merit to these words: to be connected to the family matriarch is to remain closely tied to one's own culture. To retain such a connection means to possess a greater understanding of who we are, not just as individuals but members of a greater cause. From a three-minute short to a one-woman play to a feature length debut, Fawzia Mirza's ‘The Queen of My Dreams' is an ambitious demonstration of what happens when that connection has been compromised, and the journey required to claim it back.

The Queen Of My Dreams is screening at San Diego Asian Film Festival Spring Showcase

After her father (Hamza Haq) dies tragically during a visit to Pakistan, Azra (Amrit Kaur...

Exclusive: Coming off her SXSW US feature debut, and TIFF 2023 world premiere, The Queen of My Dreams, Fawzia Mirza has signed on to direct the Australian feature film, Written in the Stars.

Penned by and starring Menik Gooneratne, Written in the Stars is an adaptation of the bestselling novel The Wedding Season by Su Dharmapala. Set in and around the Sri Lankan diaspora in Melbourne, the film centers on a woman (Gooneratne) who, when modern dating attempts fail, turns to Vedic Astrology and horoscope matching in the hopes of finding her true love.

Gooneratne’s screenplay received industry attention after making the 2021 Cape x Blacklist. The actor is best known for her work on the Peter Jackson sci-fi epic Mortal Engines and Oscar nominated Lion.

“Written in the Stars is a love letter to my hometown and community, and I am thrilled to have someone who brings such vibrancy and...

“The Queen of My Dreams” has been on its way to the big screen for more than ten years. Though not originally planned as a feature, writer and director Fawzia Mirza originally saw the story through life as both a short film and a stage play, based on her own experiences as a queer Pakistani-Canadian woman. The title is a literal translation of “Meri Sapno Ki Rani,” the wildly popular Hindi song from 1969’s “Aradhana.”

The film opens with narration from Azra (Amrit Kaur), Mirza’s self-insert, who has a complicated relationship with mother Mariam (Nimra Bucha) — but the two share an uncomplicated, undying love for the movie “Aradhana” starring Sharmila Tagore and Rajesh Khanna. When Azra’s father Hassan (Hamza Haq) suffers a fatal heart attack, Azra must join the family in Pakistan to mourn his passing — and salvage a rocky relationship with the only parent she has left.

By Abe Friedtanzer

People are never quite as far apart as they seem. While a parent surely changes as a result of having to now put someone else first, a part of their old self still remains, even if it’s hidden. An unexpected death prompts an unusual connection for one young woman and her mother in the insightful, entertaining, and creative The Queen of My Dreams, screening at SXSW…...

A narrative trifurcated across decades and generations, Fawzia Mizra’s “The Queen of My Dreams” follows a young Pakistani Canadian coming to terms with her upbringing. It hits all the familiar beats of a first-generation South Asian story and, despite its novel queer bent and tongue-in-cheek casting, it does little to separate itself, thematically or stylistically, from a now repetitive form of “third culture” storytelling.

The sound of a slide projector yanks the film’s opening images into place, as though it were a slideshow of family memories. The year is 1999. The place is Toronto. Azra is a wannabe actress — a profession of which her mother disapproves. She lives with her white, female “roommate” (her parents are none the wiser), to whom she excitedly shows the 1969 Hindi classic “Aradhana” starring Sharmila Tagore. “The Queen of My Dreams” is an English translation of the title of that movie’s most famous song,...

Ahead of its U.S. premiere at SXSW, “The Queen of My Dreams” has been sold to a flurry of international markets, including in the U.K. and Ireland to Peccadillo Pictures.

Represented globally by LevelK, the colorful drama-comedy world premiered at Toronto and had its international premiere at the BFI London Film Festival. “The Queen of My Dreams” will play at SXSW in the Festival Favorites section.

Along with Ireland and the U.K., “The Queen of My Dreams” has secured theatrical distribution deals in Eastern Europe (HBO), Indonesia (Pt. Falcon) and Pakistan (Cine Entertainment). Further sales are currently being negotiated. Cineplex Pictures will give the movie a wide release across Canada starting on March 22.

The film revolves around Azra, a Pakistani woman living in Toronto who is worlds apart from her conservative Muslim mother. When her father suddenly dies on a trip home to Pakistan, Azra finds herself...

Festival

The South Asian House initiative is back at SXSW with the festival’s first-ever South Asian music showcase. Featured acts include Jay Dhami, Bodur, Simar, Avara, Meetu Chilana, The Tabla Queen, DJ Anupi, Bollyflow and The Diversity Band. In addition, South Asian co-founder and film producer, Jitin Hingorani (“Zende”), will highlight the Telugu-language film industry becoming a healthy disruptor in the business of global cinema along with producers and directors Deepak Reddy and Sachin Dheeraj, actor Pooja Kumar, and Enowate’s Anil Shankaramanchi, who markets Telugu films in the U.S.

Following the SXSW U.S. premiere of South Asian-themed “The Queen of My Dreams,” which bowed at Toronto 2023, South Asian House will co-host the film’s premiere party in partnership with Canada House, Agliff, Isf, and the film’s producers Baby Daal Production, Spark Features, and Shut Up & Colour. South Asian House is also hosting a mixer to...

Layla

The biggest LGBTQ+ film festival in the UK, BFI Flare, has just announced its line-up for this year. It will open with Layla, which explores the complicated romance between a very conventional white gay man and a glamorous British-Palestinian drag queen, and will be introduced by director Amrou Al-Kadhi. The closing film will be Luke Willis' documentary Lady Like, which follows RuPaul's Drag Race star Lady Camden as she adjusts to fame and copes with the legacy of a troubled childhood.

Other highlights include family drama Close To You, whose star, Elliot Page, will discuss the film and reflect on his career. There are some fantastic international films in the line-up, including Brazilian drama Toll, which explores the complex relationship between a mother and son, and Canadian-Pakistani co-production The Queen Of My Dreams, in which a mother and her estranged lesbian daughter are reconnected by bereavement and...

March fest announces multiple competition sections.

SXSW announced on Wednesday that Netflix series 3 Body Problem from Game Of Thrones co-creators David Benioff and D. B. Weiss is the festival’s opening night TV premiere, while Universal’s action comedy The Fall Guy with Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt is the centrepiece screening.

Top brass at the Austin, Texas, festival (March 8-16) also unveiled feature and short competitions and Midnighters and Global sections, as well as select titles from other categories and Xr Experience for the 31st edition.

Headliners selections include world premieres of Pamela Adlon’s Babes starring Ilana Glazer,...

SXSW Film & TV Festival announced multiple categories for the 2024 event, including Opening Night TV Premiere, Centerpiece Screening and more.

Netflix’s “3 Body Problem,” executive produced and written by “Game of Thrones” creators David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, along with “True Blood” writer Alexander Woo is set to debut as the Opening Night TV Premiere. The highly anticipated series, which stars Jovan Adepo, John Bradley, Rosalind Chao, Liam Cunningham, Eiza González, Marlo Kelly, Benedict Wong and Jonathan Pryce, is an adaptation of the best-selling novel.

For the Centerpiece Screening, SXSW will debut the feature film adaptation of the 1980s series “The Fall Guy,” directed by “Atomic Blonde” helmer David Leitch, and starring Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt. Gosling portrays a battle-scarred stuntman sent back to work on his a film his ex-wife (Blunt) is directing, when the leading star goes missing. “The Fall Guy” is described as a “big-screen...

The traditionally celebrity-heavy Toronto Film Festival has unveiled its list of Canada’s best indie films for 2023, which includes a host of first-time directors that have come to the fore as the Hollywood actors strike put local movies and talent front and center at TIFF last September.

Canadian filmmakers were able to grab the spotlight after SAG-AFTRA members barred from promoting studio or streamer projects allowed them to fill the vacuum on TIFF red carpets and at industry events.

New directors were also favorites of Toronto programmers as a shifting TIFF film market with few American celebrities in town also allowed the marquee festival to double down on finding new creative voices.

So here’s the top Canadian feature films of 2023, as decided by film pickers in Toronto.

1. BlackBerry

Matt Johnson’s drama about the meteoric rise of the world’s first smartphone, before its competitive collapse, bowed in Berlin.

The Queen of My Dreams played at the London Film Festival last week, to a positive audience response. To mark its showing we had the pleasure of speaking to the leading star, Canadian actress Amrit Kaur, via Zoom.

We discuss her role in the film and the collaboration with on-screen mother Nimra Bucha, while she also speaks about how shooting a film of this nature has helped bring her closer to her own family heritage, as we discuss how unique a job acting is can be in that regard. She also speaks about her love for classic Bollywood films, and how her own journey reflects the film.

Watch the full interview with Amrit Kaur here:

Synopsis

Azra (Amrit Kaur) is ripped away from her happy queer life when her father dies while holidaying in Pakistan. And as she tries to resist conservative norms, Azra finds herself drawn into conflict with...

Fawzia Mirza’s charming debut The Queen of My Dreams begins with a familiar and heartbreaking revelation. “I used to worship my mother,” our protagonist Azra (Amrit Kaur, The Sex Lives of College Girls) says through voiceover. “I thought she was perfect. I tried to be like my mother, but I wasn’t.”

As with most daughters navigating fractious relationships with their mothers, Azra’s entry into adulthood coincided with the shattering realization that her mother is only human. The woman who guided her since infancy and counseled her through challenging moments carries her own traumas. She doesn’t always understand Azra and, perhaps most upsettingly, she might not want to.

The Queen of My Dreams is Mirza’s take on a recognizable theme. It joins a formidable batch of films exploring mother-daughter relationships this festival season, a group that includes Raven Jackson’s gorgeous and poetic film All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt...

In a world where familial ties are often tested by time and tradition, Fawzia Mirza’s latest film, The Queen of My Dreams offers a poignant dive into the dynamics between a rebellious daughter and a mother with a past not so dissimilar. This film weaves various generational narratives together, shedding light on the age-old war between convention and personal aspirations. This is a heartfelt ode to women of different eras who journey through the challenges and triumphs that bind them. The film stars Amrit Kaur, Nimra Bucha, and Hamza Haq.

The film follows Azra (Kaur), a Pakistani Canadian who isn’t concerned with conformity. Naturally, her parents Miriam (Bucha) and Hassan (Haq) aren’t happy with her choosing acting classes and an LGBTQ lifestyle. It is these choices that leave mother and daughter estranged. When her father dies, Azra travels from Canada to Pakistan to mourn with her family.

Cineplex Pictures has picked up the Canadian rights to Fawzia Mirza’s debut feature The Queen Of My Dreams, about an estranged mother and daughter coming of age in different eras, after a world premiere at the 2023 Toronto Film Festival.

Cineplex and partner Shut Up & Color will release the indie in early 2024 in theaters, with Amrit Kaur (The Sex Lives of College Girls), Nimra Bucha (Ms. Marvel) and Hamza Haq (Transplant) starring.

The film has Kaur playing Azra, a queer grad student on a trip to Pakistan facing the sudden death of her father, which sees her collide with her conservative Muslim mother Mariam (Bucha). She also plays the younger Mariam.

Azra soon finds herself on a Bollywood-inspired journey through memories, both real and imagined. Those flashbacks include her mother’s youth in Karachi, a Bolllywood-style romance with her eventual husband and Azra’s own youth in Canada.

The Canadian...

Et Canada’s Carlos Bustamante caught up with Amrit Kaur on the TIFF red carpet, where she was on hand for the world premiere of her new film “The Queen of My Dreams”.

Kaur, best known for playing Bela in “The Sex Lives of College Girls” stars in the directorial debut of Fawzia Mirza, an expansion of her 2012 short film of the same name.

‌”I feel like I’m very much in the beginning of my work.”

In Mirza’s semi-autobiographical film, Kaur plays queer Muslim grad student Azra, who returns to her ancestral home in Pakistan after the death of her father. While she clashes with her traditional mother, Mariam (Nimra Bucha), who insists she play the role of perfect grieving daughter, flashbacks to Mariam’s own life in Karachi 30 years earlier demonstrate the connections that unite mother and daughter — particularly in their shared adoration of Bollywood star Sharmila Tagore.

The apple rarely falls far from the tree and religion too often convinces said apple and tree of the opposite. This is the case with Mariam (Nimra Bucha) and Azra (Amrit Kaur) in Fawzia Mirza’s Pakistani-Canadian dramedy The Queen of My Dreams. Both are / were rebellious in their youth, desperate to cut a path that they desired beyond the boundaries of Islam or their parents. And yet both discover they are confined by those same boundaries through culture, generational trauma, and guilt.

That said, this isn’t a somber affair. Not really. Yes, it revolves around the untimely death of Azra’s father / Mariam’s husband Hassan (Hamza Haq), but the tragedy itself is as much a means to expose the cracks in this faltering mother-daughter relationship as it is to express the love that exists beneath it all. Because despite the traditionally conservative nature Mariam adheres to in the present,...

Fawzia Mirza’s feature debut, “The Queen of My Dreams,” which premieres Sept. 8 at Toronto, isn’t just a love letter to Bollywood, it’s a love letter to mothers and daughters and intergenerational connections. “It’s an attempt to reflect on the compassion we have for the elders in our lives,” says Mirza.

Amrit Kaur (“The Sex Lives of College Girls”) plays Azra, a Muslim teen living in Toronto. When her father, Hassan (Hamza Haq), suddenly dies, Azra is forced into grieving as she returns to Pakistan. “Ms. Marvel’s” Nimra Bucha plays Miriam, in the coming-of-age film that crosses decades, generations, cultures and beliefs.

“The Queen of My Dreams” began over a decade ago as a short film in which Mirza starred and co-directed with Ryan Logan. “It really began as a private conversation that I was having about my struggle with whether I could be queer and...

The 67th BFI London Film Festival has unveiled the titles that will compete in its official, first feature, documentary and short film competitions.

Festival director Kristy Matheson said: “The films represented in each of these competitive strands offer audiences an exciting array of U.K. and global filmmaking voices and cinematic forms. We’re so proud to be showcasing each of these films and thank all the filmmaking teams in competition for sharing their films with us.”

Official Competition

“Baltimore”

“Dear Jassi”

“Europa”

“Evil Does Not Exist”

“Fingernails”

“Gasoline Rainbow”

“I Am Sirat”

“The Royal Hotel”

“Self Portrait: 47 Km 2020”

“Starve Acre”

“Together 99”

First Feature Competition

“Black Dog”

“Earth Mama” (U.S. Dir-scr. Savanah Leaf)

“Hoard”

“In Camera”

“Mambar Pierrette”

“Paradise is Burning”

“Penal Cordillera”

“The Queen of My Dreams”

“Sky Peals”

“Tiger Stripes”

“Tuesday”

Documentary Competition

“Bye Bye Tiberias”

“Celluloid Underground”

“Chasing Chasing Amy”

“A Common Sequence”

“Dancing On...

Titles include Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Evil Does Not Exist; Kitty Green’s The Royal Hotel; and Christos Nikou’s Fingernails.

BFI London Film Festival has unveiled the competition line-ups for best film, best first feature and best documentary.

The 11 films competing for best film include Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Evil Does Not Exist; Kitty Green’s The Royal Hotel; Daniel Kokotajlo’s Starve Acre and Christos Nikou’s Fingernails.

Christine Molloy returns to the competition after 2019’s Rose Plays Julie. This time she has co-directed Baltimore with frequent collaborator and partner Joe Lawlor. The pair recently directed The Future Tense which...

New works by Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Kitty Green, and Christos Nikou are among the titles that have been set to play in competition at the upcoming 67th edition of the British Film Institute’s (BFI) London Film Festival. Scroll down for the full list.

Eleven films will screen in the official competition, competing for the best film award. Another eleven titles will screen in the first feature competition, competing for the sutherland award. Eight titles will play in the documentary competition, with the winner taking the grierson award.

The winners of these four competitive awards will be chosen by Lff Awards Juries, the members of which the BFI said will be announced in the coming weeks. This year, Lff runs October 4—14 and marks festival head Kristy Matheson’s first edition in charge after she took the helm last year following the exit of Tricia Tuttle. Saltburn, the latest film from Promising Young Woman filmmaker Emerald Fennell,...

Next Goal Wins (Taika Waititi, 2023).The lineup is being unveiled for the 2023 edition of the Toronto International Film Festival, starting with 60 selections from the Gala and Special Presentations programs. The festival takes place from September 7–17, 2023.Gala PRESENTATIONSConcrete Utopia (Um Tae-Hwa)Dumb Money (Craig Gillespie)Fair Play (Chloe Domont)Flora and Son (John Carney)Hate to Love: Nickelback (Leigh Brooks)Lee (Ellen Kuras)Next Goal Wins (Taika Waititi)Nyad (Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, Jimmy Chin)Punjab ’95 (Honey Trehan)Solo (Sophie Dupuis)The End We Start From (Mahalia Belo)The Movie Emperor (Ning Hao)The New Boy (Warwick Thornton) The Royal Hotel (Kitty Green)The Holdovers.Special Presentationsa Difficult Year (Éric Toledano, Olivier Nakache)A Normal Family (Hur Jin-ho)American Fiction (Cord Jefferson)Anatomy of a Fall (Justine Triet)Close to You (Dominic Savage)Days of Happiness (Chloé Robichaud)The Rescue (Daniela Goggi)Ezra (Tony Goldwyn)Fingernails (Christos Nikou)Four Daughters (Kaouther Ben Hania...

TIFF continues to build out its speaker lineup despite the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes barring a number of participants from this year’s 48th edition.

Of note, actor Viggo Mortensen will appear on stage in Toronto to discuss his feature directorial debut, the western The Dead Don’t Hurt, a movie he also stars in with Garret Dillahunt, Danny Huston and Vicky Krieps. Despite the SAG-AFTRA strike, Mortensen will appear at TIFF under the guise of director. He’ll be joined by producer Jeremy Thomas and Regina Solórzano. Global rights are available on The Dead Don’t Hurt; HanWay Films is handling.

Also having onstage conversations in the Visionaries section are Oscar winners Guillermo del Toro and Spike Lee.

Last week, TIFF announced that Pedro Almodovar, who is already receiving a tribute at the fest, Hong Kong actor Andy Lau and the stars of Korean disaster epic, Concrete Utopia, are already set to have sitdown conversations.

Speakers include Guillermo del Toro, Ladj Ly, Nadine Labaki, Viggo Mortenson, Jeremy Thomas.

TIFF top brass have unveiled the bulk of the TIFF Industry Conference line-up with sessions and speakers including Spike Lee, Lucy Walker, AI and film, and African cinema and film industries.

The Conference is divided into six sections and encompasses Doc Day and the new Sloane science and technology project pitch initiative funded by Alfred P. Sloan Foundation’s Public Understanding of Science and Technology programme.

Besides Lee and Walker, whose acquisition title Mountain Queen: The Summits Of Lhakpa Sherpa will premiere in TIFF Docs, speakers include Guillermo del Toro,...

Toronto — Today, the Toronto International Film Festival® announced this year’s Short Cuts lineup, supported by Ontario Arts Council, showcasing 42 live action narrative, documentary, and animated shorts by a groundbreaking group of filmmakers representing 23 countries. More than half of this year’s selections are directed or co-directed by female and female-identifying filmmakers. TIFF alumni directors with new films at Short Cuts include Yann Demange, Jasmin Mozaffari, Miryam Charles, Farnoosh Samadi, Halima Ouardiri, Renee Zhan, Andrea Nirmala Widjajanto, and the team of Ivete Lucas and Patrick Bresnan. Among the directors with short films at the Festival for the first time are Malia Ann and Canadian actor Mackenzie Davis. Among the notable performers in this year’s slate of new shorts are Riz Ahmed (Dammi) and Kaniehtiio Horn (Redlights).

A robust selection of new animated short films will be showcased in the programme this year. Animated films in Short Cuts include the...

Toronto — Today, the Toronto International Film Festival® announced this year’s Short Cuts lineup, supported by Ontario Arts Council, showcasing 42 live action narrative, documentary, and animated shorts by a groundbreaking group of filmmakers representing 23 countries. More than half of this year’s selections are directed or co-directed by female and female-identifying filmmakers. TIFF alumni directors with new films at Short Cuts include Yann Demange, Jasmin Mozaffari, Miryam Charles, Farnoosh Samadi, Halima Ouardiri, Renee Zhan, Andrea Nirmala Widjajanto, and the team of Ivete Lucas and Patrick Bresnan. Among the directors with short films at the Festival for the first time are Malia Ann and Canadian actor Mackenzie Davis. Among the notable performers in this year’s slate of new shorts are Riz Ahmed (Dammi) and Kaniehtiio Horn (Redlights).

A robust selection of new animated short films will be showcased in the programme this year. Animated films in Short Cuts include the...

The Toronto International Film Festival unveiled its Short Cuts showcase counting 42 live action narrative, documentary, and animated shorts from global filmmakers repping 23 countries.

That’s comprised of 21 World Premieres, 13 North American Premieres, and five International Premieres presented in 19 different languages.

More than half of this year’s selections are directed or co-directed by female and female-identifying filmmakers. TIFF alumni directors with new films at Short Cuts include Yann Demange (White Boy Rick), Jasmin Mozaffari, Miryam Charles, Farnoosh Samadi, Halima Ouardiri, Renee Zhan, Andrea Nirmala Widjajanto, and the team of Ivete Lucas and Patrick Bresnan. Among the directors with short films at the Festival for the first time are Malia Ann and Canadian actor Mackenzie Davis. Among the notable performers in this year’s slate of new shorts are Riz Ahmed in Dammi and Kaniehtiio Horn in Redlights.

Animated films in Short Cuts include the...

It is the feature directorial debut from Fawzia Mirza.

LevelK has boarded international sales for the Canadian/Pakistani dramedy The Queen Of My Dreams, which will have its world premiere in Toronto’s Discovery section. Signature Move’s Fawzia Mirza writes and directs.

Azra, a 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 finds herself on a Bollywood-inspired journey through memories, both real and imagined, from her mother’s youth in Karachi to her own coming-of-age in rural Canada.

Amrit Kaur from HBO...

Toronto — The Toronto International Film Festival® is thrilled to announce the 2023 selections for the Discovery and Midnight Madness programmes. The infamous Midnight Madness lineup features 10 titles, 7 of which are World Premieres. The Discovery lineup, which primarily boasts World and International Premieres, includes 26 titles. Notably, 13 female filmmakers representing 50% of the total programme are featured in this year’s Discovery programme.

Midnight Madness and Discovery provide a cornucopia of original and unexpected work. Midnight Madness is a fan favourite, iconoclastic programme highlighting the weird and the wicked, while the Discovery programme offers a window to contemporary international cinema and introduces the public to first and second feature films from gifted new filmmakers.

“We’re excited to be showcasing new voices, audacious vision, and genre-bending cinema,” said Anita Lee, TIFF Chief Programming Officer. “TIFF’s Discovery and Midnight Madness programmes for 2023 will once again prove to be the ultimate destination for tastemakers and experience seekers.

The Toronto International Film Festival lineup keeps rolling in, with Midnight Madness, Discovery, and Platform programs being unveiled this week. Leading the pack is the North American premiere of Harmony Korine’s infrared action feature Aggro DR1FT, while new films from Tarsem, Larry Charles, Patricia Arquette, Molly Manning Walker, and more were also added.

“Sides will be split — both figuratively and literally (on screen) — as Midnight Madness returns to the Royal Alexandra Theatre with another stimulating concoction of unpredictable shock and ‘y’arr!’ cinema,” said Peter Kuplowsky, TIFF International Programmer, Midnight Madness. “Featuring two timely satiric provocations from Saudi Arabia (Naga) and Serbia (Working Class Goes to Hell) — nations that are making their section debut — this year’s madness infectiously ignites with 11 o’clock numbers that go all the way to midnight courtesy of Larry Charles’ bonkers and bawdy Dicks: The Musical. A menagerie of tastes will be sated, so bottoms up!

Patricia Arquette’s Gonzo Girl and Larry Charles’ Dicks: The Musical open the sections.

The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) has unveiled the titles in its Discovery and Midnight Madness programmes, with the line-ups including Harmony Korine’s Aggro Dr1ft, Patricia Arquette’s Gonzo Girl and Molly Manning Walker’s How To Have Sex.

The Discovery line-up, designed to open a window on contemporary international cinema with first and second features from new filmmakers, comprises 26 titles from 25 countries, most of them world or international premieres.

As well as Arquette’s directing debut Gonzo Girl, with the actor also starring alongside Willem Dafoe,...

The Toronto International Film Festival announced the 2023 selections for the Discovery and Midnight Madness program this morning. The Midnight Madness lineup features 10 titles, seven of which are World Premieres. The Discovery lineup, which primarily boasts World and International Premieres, includes 26 titles. Notably, 13 female filmmakers representing 50% of the total are featured in this year’s Discovery program.

Midnight Madness and Discovery provide a cornucopia of original and unexpected work. Midnight Madness is a fan favorite, iconoclastic program highlighting the weird and the wicked, while the Discovery program offers a window to contemporary international cinema and introduces the public to first and second feature films from gifted new filmmakers.

“We’re excited to be showcasing new voices, audacious vision, and genre-bending cinema,” said Anita Lee, TIFF Chief Programming Officer. “TIFF’s Discovery and Midnight Madness program for 2023 will once again prove to be the ultimate destination for tastemakers and experience seekers.”

Midnight...