Accessibility
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Wheelchair spaces and step-free seating is available for this screening – click below to book accessible seats.
Canada, Pakistan202398 minUrdu with English subtitles First Feature
Mariam, a medical student, is dealing with her grandfather’s passing, her grieving mother, and preparing for upcoming exams. When an estranged and suspiciously helpful uncle re-enters their lives and promises support with their property and finances, Mariam senses trouble. At school, she meets a charming fellow student who presents a tempting option of marriage and financial security, a supposed avenue of freedom and autonomy. When Mariam begins to feel haunted by the presence of men around her and the spirits of those long gone, escape starts to seem elusive.
In this chilling feature debut by director Zarrar Kahn, Mariam’s story evokes the sharply suffocating experience of gendered oppression that’s situated in but nowhere near unique to Pakistan. A visceral and unsettling yet ultimately triumphant narrative, and the first South Asian horror film to premiere at Cannes, In Flames is a remarkably bold and unwavering portrayal of how women navigate and conquer countless forms of violence and control in patriarchal societies.
– Mariam Zaidi
Ramesha Nawal
Bakhtawar Mazhar
Omar Javaid
OFFICIAL SELECTION
Cannes Film Festival, 2023
Toronto International Film Festival, 2023
Calgary International Film Festival, 2023
Zarrar Kahn
Zarrar Kahn is a Pakistani Canadian writer, director, and producer, and an alumnus of the TIFF Filmmaker Lab. His works have been screened in more than 80 film festivals worldwide, including TIFF, Locarno, and Cannes. In Flames (2023) is his feature debut.
PG
Content Warning: Themes of abuse, mature themes, frightening scenes, sexual innuendo
10 Nov, 2023 8:00 pm
TIFF Bell Lightbox C3–

Wheelchair spaces and step-free seating is available for this screening – click below to book accessible seats.
Join us for a Q&A immediately after the screening with director Zarrar Kahn.

Directed by Meredith Hama-Brown. Judith, a Japanese Canadian woman, and her reluctant white husband attend a week-long couple’s retreat on a coastal British Columbia island, their two daughters in tow. With Judith grieving the recent loss of her mother, and her connection to her Japanese Canadian identity, the couple’s disconnect grows as she finds herself infatuated with another, seemingly perfect, interracial couple at the retreat.
The Good Guise is an artist collective in Toronto formed to spark conversations around healthy masculinity.
The Sari-Sari Xchange is a project that seeks to amplify Asian representation in the creative emerging media industries in Canada, particularly through a community-building residency program that engages artists with digital and extended reality (XR) technologies such as virtual and augmented reality, 360 cinema, game-engine animation, and 3D scanning.