The Queen of My Dreams

Fawzia Mirza's 2024 film is about the distance between Azra, living in Canada, and her conservative mother. When her father dies suddenly in Pakistan, Azra travels there for the funeral; from there the story moves to her mother's youth in Karachi in the seventies, and the two women's stories run in parallel. The idea is that the mother too was once rebellious and her daughter does not know it. Amrit Kaur plays both Azra and the young mother, a choice that makes the resemblance visible. Bollywood references are woven through; what unites the two women is loving the same films. The story at times loses its balance between the two periods. Who it's for: viewers who like diaspora stories and mother and daughter narratives. Who it's not for: anyone wanting direct storytelling, or troubled by tensions of identity and religion left unresolved.