The Queen of My Dreams

Official Selection, 2023 Toronto International Film Festival
Official Selection, 2024 SXSW Film Festival

Azra isn’t exactly the perfect Pakistani daughter. Thoroughly Canadian, queer, and now pursuing an MFA in acting, she’s the apple of her mother’s eyerolls. When her father suddenly dies of a heart attack on a trip to Pakistan, Azra and her family go for the funeral, and Azra is forced to confront a culture that feels both distant and an inerasable part of her DNA.

In the hands of director Fawzia Mirza, that cross-Pacific connection triggers a kind of cross-generational magic. Azra’s arrival in Pakistan sparks flashbacks to 1969 Karachi, a lively, colorful golden age of booze, rock, and youthful possibility. Back then, Azra’s mother was far from conservative, but rather a Bollywood-obsessed, cigarette-smoking young woman plotting with her crush to marry for love. Unbeknownst to her, Azra is in fact a spitting image of her imperfect mother.

THE QUEEN OF MY DREAMS is a charming dramedy of the partitions within families, the enduring joy of old Hindi songs, and the passions of women who are all secret actors and glamorous stars of their own movie melodramas.

–Brian Hu

Co-Presented by Ajumma EXP.