the Queen of my dreams

May 10 – 12

7:00 pm Nightly
1:30 pm Special Mother’s Day Matinee Sunday

2023 • Comedy / Drama / LGBTQ+
PG – 1h 39m

A sweet mother-daughter story filled with Bollywood homage, 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.

This vibrant debut feature is a sweet story about how the messiness of family is what matters most. The film opens with narration from Azra (Sex Lives of College Girls star 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.

Mirza organizes The Queen of My Dreams as two coming-of-age stories set across three timelines. There’s the immediate present, where we watch Azra and Mariam struggle to find common ground in the wake of Hassan’s death. There are flashes to Azra’s childhood years in Nova Scotia, beginning with her family’s arrival in 1989. And finally, there’s a timeline with 22-year-old Mariam living in Karachi in 1969 with her overbearing mother Amira (Gul-e-Rana). Taking cues from Aradhana, a film that casts a single actor to play the same role, Kaur plays present-day Azra and younger Mariam. (The younger Azra is played by Ayana Manji.)

The Queen of My Dreams is about challenging tradition. Though complex, layered, and heartbreaking, the 97-minute drama-comedy manages to churn up a dialogue about the challenges and emotions felt by immigrant mothers and the impact felt by their daughters. In an attempt to explore individual desires and cultural expectations, The Queen of My Dreams serves as a touching, sincerely heartfelt communication of how we must learn to understand each other.