Earlier in 2025, moviegoers were treated to the wonderful gay Indian feature “A Nice Indian Boy,” directed by queer filmmaker Roshan Sethi, and starring out actors Karan Soni and Jonathan Groff. Now, neighboring Pakistan is represented in lesbian writer/director Fawzia Mirza’s nearly equally good “The Queen of My Dreams” (WILLA/Cineplex).
Mirza, who wrote and starred in Jennifer Reeder’s marvelous lesbian romcom “Signature Move,” moves from in front of the camera to behind it with this directorial debut. The good news is that she’s a natural.
Moving back and forth in time, covering 1969, 1986, and 1999, “The Queen of My Dreams” focuses on a complicated mother/daughter relationship. In 1999, young lesbian Azra (Amrit Kaur) talks about how she used to worship her mother, how she wanted to be like her, and thought she was as perfect as a Bollywood movie. Azra lives in Toronto with her girlfriend Rachel (Kya Mosey), where they are both enrolled in an MFA program for acting, and who she describes as her roommate to her parents Mariam (Nimra Bucha) and Hassan (Hamza Haq).
Azra gets along much better with Hassan than she does with religiously conservative Mariam, both of whom are packing for a trip from Canada to Pakistan. Sadly, Hassan has a fatal heart attack while in Pakistan, and Azra and her brother Zahid (Ali A. Kazim) fly to their parents’ homeland to attend the funeral.
While in Karachi, Azra learns things about her mother. Told in flashback sequences, set in 1969, we see Mariam (also played by Kaur) as a young woman coming into her own in a previously much more liberal society. She loves Bollywood movies. She hangs out with her best friend Rani (Bakhtawar Mazhar) and socializes with a drag queen also named Rani (trans actor Zara Usman). It’s BF Rani who introduces Mariam to her cousin, medical student Hassan, the man Mariam will eventually marry, and with whom she will relocate to Nova Scotia, and start a family. This version of Mariam is surprising to Azra, who only knows her as the religiously conservative woman who raised her.
The 1989 sequence, when pre-teen Azra (Ayana Manji) is not only struggling to fit in at the Christian school she attends, but is also becoming aware of her queer identity, perfectly captures the awkwardness of the period. With Hassan gaining respect as the new doctor in town, Mariam also tries to forge an identity for herself, becoming a Tupperware salesperson in the process.
Ten years later, faced with the death of her father, Azra must also come to terms with the limitations placed upon her by her deeply religious family. For example, she is not allowed to take part in Hassan’s funeral ritual because she is a woman, which infuriates her. However, she has no choice but to comply. Eventually, in a final scene at the cemetery, mother and daughter bond in an unexpected moment.
Rating: B-
