SXSW 2024: Writer-Director Fawzia Mirza and Star Amrit Kaur Discuss ‘The Queen of My Dreams,’ the Exploration of One’s Self Through Art, the Power of Filmmaking, and More

Fawzia Mirza’s debut feature film, The Queen of My Dreams, embarks on a captivating odyssey that has mesmerized audiences across the festival circuit, establishing her as a burgeoning force in the world of cinema. With a stellar ensemble cast including Amrit Kaur (Sex Lives of College Girls), Hamza Haq (Transplant), and Nimra Bucha (Ms. Marvel), the film delivers vibrant performances that delve into the intricacies of grief, identity, and the profound ties to one’s homeland.

As the film unfolds, viewers are transported to 1999, a pivotal year for Azra (Amrit Kaur), a queer Muslim grad student whose life is upended by the sudden death of her father Hassan. This event catapults her back to her ancestral home in Pakistan, where her mother Mariam (Nimra Bucha) awaits, expecting Azra to conform to the role of the perfect grieving daughter. Yet, as the narrative delves into flashbacks of Mariam’s own past in Karachi three decades earlier, intricate connections between mother and daughter emerge, rooted in their shared adoration of Bollywood star Sharmila Tagore.

Pop Culturalist was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to speak with Fawzia and Amrit about The Queen of My Dreams, the film’s exploration of identity, how the rewarding filming experience led to a lot of self growth and discovery, the power of art, and more.

PC: Fawzia, The Queen of My Dreams has lived in different mediums and formats from a short film to a play. As you’ve adapted it for your full-length directorial debut, how did that script change/evolve?
Fawzia: When it was a short film, I had no idea that I was a filmmaker. I didn’t know I was going to be making a feature film out of it. The short film world premiered in 2012, and at the time, I was acting. I was really reconciling my identity. Yes, I had come out in 2007, but I wasn’t really fully out or comfortable being out.

I was still wrestling with whether I could be queer and Muslim and love Bollywood romance. So I shot this footage that was supposed to be an art installation. A friend of mine helped me turn it into a film. I feel like through making that, it really saved my life. It was how I found the power of art.

Then I started sharing it with film festivals and I thought to myself, maybe I should do this more. I started making more shorts and series. At the time, because I was an actor, the big dream was doing this one-person show. That was my big dream.

So I worked with a company in Chicago who helped me develop a play. I performed that. I got to perform that in Pakistan, which was really cathartic because when we think about how we transcend into our greatest self, there are so many layers of healing work that you have to do and so many layers of trauma that we have to excavate. Doing that play was a big part of that process.

It was only after doing that show that I started to imagine a feature film. It was only three years ago that I decided I would direct the feature film. It’s been quite a journey, but I feel super blessed that it’s here at SXSW and it’s having any kind of impact on audiences.

PC: Amrit, this is your first feature film as a lead, congratulations by the way. There’s so much depth to this character as she gets to explore so many universal themes such as sexuality, generational nuances, as well as her connection to her homeland, which you’ve brought to life so brilliantly on screen. As an actress, how did you create the space for yourself to tackle that vulnerability?
Amrit: I failed. Before I started the movie, I was coming right out of Sex Lives of College Girls, which is a completely different genre. I was scared. I went Italy to train with my coach for five weeks before doing this film. I was in this complete fog to be honest. There were so many realities that I hadn’t explored or come to terms with and the realities of my relationship with sexuality, with abuse, my relationship with my parents, my anger with my home land and simultaneously, my love. It was all of those things. I had to admit where I’m from, where my ancestry is from. In you’re head, you’re like, “Yeah, I’m Indian,” but what does that mean? It was really exploring that. What does it mean sexually? What don’t I want to reveal about how I treat my own mother?

In many ways, I was brave with some things, but I could have gone way further with how poorly I’ve treated my own mother because that’s what the power of art is. I see a character who’s admitting how badly they treat their mother, and I’m like, “Sh*t. I’m revealed. Maybe I don’t want to treat my mother in that way either.” I could have been braver in that, but the process was a deep, personal investigation, failing, but going through the block and continuing.

PC: Fawzia, as you were saying, it was three years ago when you were looking for a queer Muslim to direct this feature, but you decided to claim that space, which is such an inspiring message for any aspiring filmmaker. What was the most surprising part about this experience? What have you learned that you’re going to be able to bring to your next project?
Fawzia: That I can do it. I had a moment on set when it was chaos. We were in Pakistan. We’d shot the Canadian portion of it. We’re in Karachi. One of my producers, Andria Wilson Mirza, who is also my wife and without whom I wouldn’t be here, it was so chaotic, I turned to her and I said, “This is what I’m meant to do.” That’s confidence, self-love, and awareness of our power and capacity is one of the great gifts of this film.

The other thing that I took from this was the power of filmmaking. There are so many things that you’re aware of like we get to give people jobs, we get to work in different communities, and also the other thing that I learned is that through this film, so many of our cast and crew have been able to travel from Pakistan to Canada to the United States to bear witness to the film’s premieres. That’s nothing that I could have ever imagined before. There have been so many blessings that have come out of this.

PC: Amrit, this is such a personal story to Fawzia. Did you feel that weight and responsibility heading into this project? Is it a different experience when the director wrote this screenplay and also has experience in front of the camera?
Amrit: It is. I would say more so the fact that it was a personal story because I felt the responsibility of telling the truth. This wasn’t created. This was her real experience. I can’t mess around with that.

PC: Fawzia, something that you’ve done so brilliantly with this film is you’ve been able to contrast the grief and discovering your identity with so much vibrancy in the ways that you shot and also the music that was incorporated. Was that something you were mindful of as you were heading into this project or was that a discover you made while there?
Fawzia: Grief is never one color. It’s never one shade. How many times have we been at funerals where we’re laughing constantly, telling jokes, and remembering our love for the person who has transitioned? In moments of joy, there are also tears. I am not one thing. Our feelings are not one thing. Grief is not just one thing. There are shades. I did want to bring that through the process of writing this, but also being on set, we found so many more shades, but also in that edit.

My father did pass in a similar fashion and in a very dramatic way as Azra experiences in the movie. I knew that I didn’t want to show or depict that in exactly the way that it happened because there’s a lot of trauma already. I’m queer. We have that trauma. But what are the other shades that we can show? The shade that really matters to me, no matter what I’m doing, is how do we show our hope? How do we center our joy? How do we center our possibility? How do we center the fantasy of a future where we respect and love each other?

PC: Amrit, you’ve spoken in the past about how Fawzia was able to command the set and get the best performance out of you. What was the scene in the film that you’re most proud of because of that collaboration?
Amrit: It’s the scene where I walk out of the airport and I see my mother, and I’m crying. It was about letting my full face resonate in those emotions. I remember coming out of it and I asked Fawzia, “Did I tell your story?” I remember sitting in the fear. I didn’t know if it was mine or the character’s. I was scared. I was scared to allow that reveal of the broken heart.

PC: Fawzia, having gotten your start in acting, how helpful was it having that experience as you worked with your cast on your full-length directorial debut and created that space for them to play and interpret these characters?
Fawzia: I have to tell you. I love actors. I hold so much space for everything that they’re going through and how hard it is to cultivate and excavate your deepest emotions and struggles and put them on display for everyone to see. That compassion for actors really comes from having been in that space myself and feeling my own sense of vulnerability, fear, terror, joy, struggle, and compassion.

PC: Amrit, you also get to share a character with Nimra [Bucha]. How did her creative decisions impact yours or vice versa?
Amrit: What I knew of her from her interviews and watching her was that she’s a big, vivacious person. She commands the space and is so captivating.

In my prep work, some of the things that I do is choose what animal I’m going to work on which is going to be the essence of the character. So I worked on the horse, which I felt was loud, elegant, classy, and that’s how I worked her personality into Mariam, but also studying the accent and listening to her interviews.

PC: Fawzia, you’ve also been such a trailblazer for so many different communities. Many of whom will be seeing themselves represented on screen for the first time. What does this moment mean to you? Having brought this around to different festivals, what has it been like getting to see the impact that you’ve created firsthand?
Fawzia: At the world premiere screening that we did at TIFF, I didn’t know how it would be received. It was afterwards where the audience, which was not just Asian, not just queer, not just Muslim, not just South Asian or Brown, not just women came up to me and told me that they were laughing and crying at the same time. There was a relatability and a connection to the emotions. That’s a dream. I want everybody to be laughing and crying at the same time watching the film because that’s the truth. So it’s been pretty remarkable. To make something with your whole heart and to have it met with heart, it’s a dream. Even though we were at TIFF, then London for BFI, and now SXSW, this U.S. premiere feels like a beginning.

Make sure to follow Fawzia (Twitter/Instagram) and Amrit (Twitter/Instagram).

The Queen of My Dreams Screening Times at SXSW:

• ZACH Theatre – Mar 9, 2024 (9:15pm—10:52pm)
• Alamo Lamar 6 – Mar 12, 2024 (9:45pm—11:22pm)
• Alamo Lamar 9 – Mar 14, 2024 (6:00pm—7:37pm)

Photo Credit: David Noles Photography (Amrit)