F.P. Report
KARACHI: The Queen of My Dreams is all set to be premiered at the prestigious Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) on September 8.
The comedic drama is a Canada-Pakistan co-production.
The film revolves around a Pakistani woman Azra who lives in Toronto. She is very much different from her conservative mother, Mariam.
Azra goes on a Bollywood-inspired journey through real and imagined memories when her father suddenly dies on a trip home to Pakistan. The memories are about her mother’s youth in Karachi to her own coming-of-age in rural Canada.
“I always dreamt of making a feature film in Pakistan, and this entire journey was a dream come true,” said director Fawzia Mirza. The Queen of My Dreams is Mirza’s first feature film.
The star-studded cast includes Amrit Kaur, Nimra Bucha, Hamza Haq, Gul e Rana, Ali A Kazmi, Meher Jaffri, Bakhtawar Mazhar, Adnan Jaffar, and many more.
The movie is a unique cross-border collaboration with Pakistan-based producers Kamil Chima of Laal Kabootar and Carol Noronha of In Flames working in partnership with Canadian producers Jason Levangie, Marc Tetreault, and Andria Wilson Mirza for a month long spell in Karachi last year, which followed a 10-day spell in Nova Scotia, Canada.
Meanwhile, Canadian cinematographer Matt Irwin and production designer Michael Pierson also collaborated with Karachi based Cyrus Kyranjia and Imran Naeem (art), Fizza Ejaz and Faiz Rohani (costume), and Minahil Chima and Nanson Gill (makeup) to bring the film’s multiple time periods to life.
The Pakistani team also included 1st AD Farjad Akhtar and unit production manager Ameer Hamza, who also worked with Noronha on In Flames, which had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year.
The producer of In Flames, Anam Abbas, is also an executive producer of The Queen of My Dreams.
