The Queen of My Dreams

Interview with writer/director Fawzia Mirza

Opened June 20th in select cities across the US and expands to more locations July 4th. See tickets and showtimes here.

Describe the film for us in your own words.

THE QUEEN OF MY DREAMS is a story of a mother and daughter at odds, who are brought together in Pakistan due to an unforeseen event. Then, through memory, community, and maybe a little time travel, we see mother and daughter at various critical moments in their individual and shared lives. The film spans three time periods and two countries. It’s a dramedy, a love letter to mothers and a love letter to love and romance.

What drew you to this story?

The story began in a deeply personal place as a short film in 2012 called THE QUEEN OF MY DREAMS, which you can watch the 3-minute short on my website, that was essentially me using art as a means of reconciling who I am and who I am allowed to be, which was rooted in trying to understand my mother. I had this obsession with her. I wanted to be like her. And I wanted to live the Bollywood fantasy. This short film was my trying to reconcile whether I could still be queer and still live up to those iconic women. The answers I found on the other side of this work was, of course, a resounding, ‘Yes.’

Making that art saved my life; it was deeply therapeutic and healing, and then sharing it at film festivals around the world gave me a sense of community and belonging I hadn’t quite felt before. Since I was an actor, the dream was to write a one-person show, which I did with the help of a company in Chicago called ME, MY MOM & SHARMILA. It was only after developing and performing the show around the country and in several countries, including Pakistan, that I began to think about a feature film version of this story.

What do you want people to think about?

Circles. Repetition. Ritual. Cycles. Stepping outside of cycles. Learning from those who came before us and stepping outside of the intergenerational trauma that hurts us. Compassion. Love. We have so much emotional goop that lives inside of us that we need to excavate. The more we examine the stuff that causes us pain and let it out, the more we can let go, and the more we can focus on the thing that matters most – love. Love yourself. So that you can love others. So that you can be your most transcendent self.

What was the biggest challenge in making this?

This is the least sexy answer, but it was difficult to get our film insured. For some reason, unfortunately, Pakistan is on a list of countries deemed “dangerous,” so it makes insurance companies tell filmmakers they cannot insure their movies. People pitched us on different countries where we could shoot this film instead, but for me, part of the essential storytelling was to film on the land where the story took place. We were denied insurance multiple times, and worried we wouldn’t be able to begin principal photography, but we finally got insured; however, we had to pay double or triple the rate. This insurance issue is a very real systemic barrier that filmmakers face when deciding on how and where to make their art.

What was the development process? How did you get green lit?

This is an independent film and an international co-production, unofficially, between Canada and Pakistan. Me and Andria Wilson Mirza, my producing partner and wife, are Canadian, and our production company, Baby Daal, is based in Toronto; therefore, we financed it in Canada. Our first funding was from the CBC, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, with a broadcast license fee that unlocked other funding opportunities for us. Our national funder, Telefilm Canada, supported the film, and our Canadian producing partners helped us to put together the rest of the financing, which included Canadian streaming pre-sales, licence fee top-ups, and tax credits. Then, we had an incredible American partner, Spark Features, who joined the project and provided the critical support we needed to finish the film. It was non-negotiable for us to shoot in Pakistan, but there is no tax incentive or funding support there, so we had to be creative and find ways to make the financing meet the creative needs of the project.

What inspired you to become a storyteller?

When I was five years old, growing up in Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada, I learned the power of comedy. I was the only South Asian and Muslim kid in my school. And the other kids were talking about my lunch. That it smelled. I remember getting up on my desk and dancing. Creating a distraction to save me from being made fun of. And everyone laughed. Not at me. But with me. That was my earliest memory of performing. Which was my spark into this world. And then, as a queer, Muslim, South Asian person, I started making queer, Muslim, South Asian stories because, well, there were none. I didn’t see myself. And because we didn’t have as much access in 2012 to each other via IG or TikTok, I felt compelled to make my own movies.

What’s the best and worst advice you've received?

The best advice? Love every scene. It was something I heard from Celine Sciamma in one of her talks I watched online. That has stuck with me in everything I do. The worst advice? In 2020, I decided to stop acting and focus on writing and directing. My manager and team at the time were not supportive of my career transition. So, without notice, they dropped me. It’s like they were frustrated that I was chasing the wrong dreams. I was told by that same former manager that doing things the way I was doing them, “Just wasn’t the way it’s done,” and this was not the way I was going to be a successful director. He said to me, “I hope I’m wrong, Fawzia.”

What advice do you have for other female creatives?

Know who you are. The industry will try to tell you who you are, and who you should be, and you’ll be encouraged to change your voice, style or values to fit a mandate or a moment. Be collaborative, and be open when you’re in spaces of creative safety, but know what’s true about you and hold onto that truth. Know what only you can do, know your voice, and trust it.

Name your favorite woman directed film and why.

I love Deepa Metha’s FIRE. It was the first film I ever saw that depicted a lesbian romance in a South Asian family or household. And I didn’t realize the full extent of why this film moved me so much until after I came out years later. I also loved Lulu Wang’s THE FAREWELL. It is so deeply connected to my own intergenerational family experiences and showed me the possibility of blending great comedy and drama in a way that felt real, beautiful, funny, and true.

Feel free to share anything else you would like people to know about this film.

We just announced an incredible merch collaboration with South Asian artist Ramisha Sattar, @mishapice, who is a visionary creative (you may know her as Chappell Roan’s creative director, or the artist behind the design in the Chani astrology app!). She loves the film and designed some stunning imagery that we are selling exclusively online here. Every dollar raised supports the independent distribution of the film, in partnership with our distributors at WILLA and Product of Culture.