Pakistan202467 minUrdu, Pashto, Hazaragi with English subtitlesCanadian PremiereAvailable Online

Situated in a modest retail complex in Quetta, Pakistan, is a small photo studio plastered with framed images of clients posing with women they don't know, guns they don’t own, and motorcycles they’ve never ridden. “Make it look real” is the instruction given to the photo studio owner, Muhammad Sakhi, who earnestly captures his clients’ desires and ambitions through staged, saturated, and heavily doctored photographs. Conversations between customers and Sakhi reveal that, although the photos may be fake, the desire and delight behind them are very real.

Serving as a portal to imagined realities, each photograph emerges as a reflection on ideas of gender expression, power, and success, revealing the delicate interplay between identity and longing. As documentary director Danial Shah builds an effortless bond with Sakhi, we’re invited into a welcoming space that offers a compelling observation of the empowerment and sense of freedom possible when identities are allowed to be constructed and reworked.

- Mariam Zaidi

Pakistan202498 minUrduToronto PremiereAnimation, Family-friendly

A young, gifted Vincent and his father Tomas run the finest glass workshop in the country, creating delicate, magnificent pieces of art. Their close bond is soon put to the test with the arrival of an army colonel and his young, aspiring violinist daughter Alliz, to their hometown. Amidst the rumblings of an impending war, Vincent and Alliz eventually fall in love, a relationship that is continually opposed and challenged by their fathers.

Using precise and absorbing hand-drawn animation, bursting with rich detail and colours, The Glassworker is a groundbreaking production, pieced together over a decade by Mano Animation Studios, Pakistan’s first hand-drawn animation studio. Much in the vein of a Studio Ghibli feature, which director Usman Riaz credits as inspiration, The Glassworker uses each frame with deep intention to tell a heart-tugging story about the fragility of life, particularly one lived through conflict.

– Mariam Zaidi

Pakistan, USA202216 minUrdu with English subtitlesAnimation, Comedy, Directed By Women, Drama, Family-friendly

Iman, a privileged six-year-old Pakistani girl, embarks on a mission to save her beloved pet goat from being eaten on the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha.

Directors Bio

Mahnoor Euceph

Mahnoor Euceph is a Pakistani American writer and director. She immigrated from Pakistan to Los Angeles at age eight and quickly learned that nobody else cares about cricket.

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

Canada, Pakistan202189 minUrdu, English with English subtitlesNorth American PremiereDocumentary, Reel Asian Award Winner, Women Filmmakers

In the electrifying lead-up to the multi-city Aurat March (Women’s March) in Pakistan, director Anam Abbas follows grassroots organizers as they navigate a deeply surveilled and violent environment to assert a growing, nation-wide feminist movement. Negotiating freedoms with fearful relatives and dodging constant scrutiny, activists move with unbreakable commitment to galvanizing their communities with a radical feminist agenda.

Using observational footage of heated organizing conversations and extensive coverage of the movement and its backlash across 11 cities, Abbas constructs a layered narrative, astutely tracing state suppression of women’s resistance in Pakistan to the damage caused by its colonial past. This Stained Dawn (Dagh Dagh Ujala), which borrows its title from a verse by revolutionary poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz about the tainted dawn after a violent partition, is a powerful record of a turning point in Pakistan’s history, as one of the most urgent displays of large-scale feminist organizing gains remarkable momentum and promise.

- Mariam Zaidi

Canada, Myanmar, Pakistan, Philippines, South Korea, USA202181 minEnglish and various languages with English subtitles Animation, Drama, Family, Fantasy, LGBTQ+ Filmmakers, Non-binary Filmmakers, Women Filmmakers

Sing along to this collection of short films featuring characters who find themselves confronting systemic, structural, and personal challenges, all while defying conventional narratives and reconstructing alternative possibilities of storytelling.

Canada, Pakistan202017 min English, Urdu with English subtitlesDrama

It’s 1978 in Pakistan, amid guitar riffs and late-night shows, rockstar Lenny from the Christian community is offered the chance to reinvent himself as a state-sanctioned singer.

Accessibility

This presentation has English subtitles.

Directors Bio

Hamza Bangash

Hamza Bangash is an award-winning Pakistani Canadian director, screenwriter, and producer. An alumnus of both the Locarno and Asian filmmakers academies, his artistic practice is based out of Karachi.