A family tragedy sparks a vibrant Bollywood-style journey into the past, as a queer Pakistani-Canadian woman navigates her complicated relationship with her mother.
“I used to worship my mother. I thought she was perfect. I tried to be like her, but I wasn’t.”
After the sudden death of her father, aspiring actress Azra (Amrit Kaur) travels from her home in Toronto to Pakistan to honour the wishes of her mother Mariam (Nimra Bucha) who wants to organise a traditional Muslim funeral. Reunited after a long time apart, Miriam and Azra are forced to contend with their difficult relationship, which has been strained since Azra’s coming out. As the two women try to reconnect, a vibrant Bollywood-style journey ensues, which transcends the boundaries of past and present. Flashbacks to Miriam’s youth in 1960s Karachi (in which young Miriam is also played by Kaur) suggest that mother and daughter, both single-minded, vivacious and unconventional, might not be as far removed from one another as they assume.
Fawzia Mirza’s semi-autobiographical debut feature draws deeply from her personal experiences as a queer Pakistani-Canadian woman. The Queen of My Dreams offers an intimate exploration of the complexities of mother-daughter relationships, set against the backdrop of a first-generation immigrant family. The journey of self-discovery is not always easy, but in Mirza’s hands, it is filled with warmth, humour, song and dance.
- Director: Fawzia Mirza
- Cast: Amrit Kaur, Nimra Bucha, Hamza Haq
- Language: English
A Time and a Place—Invisible Women present a season of coming of age films by women filmmakers, inspired by Bradford’s diasporic past
Bradford is famously defined by a rich history of migration. With more than a third of its population aged under 25, it’s also often described as the UK’s youngest city.
For the Year of Culture, archive activist feminist collective Invisible Women, have curated a season of coming of age films which draw inspiration from Bradford’s story of youth and diaspora. A Time and a Place is inspired by the many nationalities who have called this city home over the past century - from the German, Hungarian and Ukrainian communities who arrived in the aftermath of war and persecution, to the Irish and Pakistani migrant workers who played such an important role in our industrial heritage.
Although diverse in perspective and style, these films (all directed and written by women) are fundamentally connected by their empathy for the emotional rollercoaster which comes with navigating early adulthood. Both Mädchen in Uniform (1931) and Hush-A-Bye Baby (1989) set school girl romance in opposition to state oppression, albeit within very different contexts—fascist Germany and Troubles-era Northern Ireland. The relationship between mothers and their children is central to both Kira Muratova’s The Long Farewell (1971), set in Soviet-era Ukraine, and Fawzia Mirza’s The Queen of My Dreams (2023), in which a queer Canadian woman reconnects with her Pakistani heritage. Finally, Ildikó Enyedi’s bewitching My Twentieth Century (1989) presents a literally explosive story of political and personal awakening, set in turn of the century Hungary.
