Join us as we co-present Toronto Outdoor Picture Show’s screening of The Queen of My Dreams, directed by Fawzia Mirza, with short films, baby fat, directed by Iris Kim, and Pink Light directed by Harrison Browne. Enjoy a summer evening of films, arts & crafts, and snacks at Bell Manor Park!
The programme notes below are provided from TOPS’ event webpage.
Through the lens of Bollywood fantasy, the time-bending, transnational film The Queen of My Dreams tells the story of twenty-something Azra (Amrit Kaur in a Canadian Screen Award-winning lead performance), a queer Pakistani-Canadian Muslim woman. Azra’s coming-of-age narrative is portrayed alongside flashbacks of her mother Mariam’s own young adult story, first in Karachi with her new beau, Azra’s father, then as a recent immigrant to Canada with their young family. Pakistani-Canadian director Fawzia Mirza builds the narrative around an emotional journey to the family’s homeland for Azra’s father’s untimely funeral. Mother and daughter’s reunion in Karachi is the impetus for Azra to discover her mother’s experiences as a young woman undertaking a life-altering journey, while trying to carve out her place in the world. Through third culture storytelling, Mirza draws on her own experiences as a South Asian, queer Muslim woman to give Azra the chance to retrace her mother’s steps, and to see how much more she has in common with her mother than she originally thought.
Fawzia Mirza
Director, Writer, Producer
Fawzia Mirza is a Canadian film and TV director and screenwriter. Her work includes the award-winning feature film The Queen of My Dreams starring Amrit Kaur, the 2017 film Signature Move, and web series Kam Kardashian and Brown Girl Problems. She directed on the 2025 Hulu series Deli Boys.
Feeling stuck in your twenties, haunted by the fear you’ve chosen the wrong path and burdened with familial pressures, is the all-too-common reality suburban Torontonian Kitty is confronted with when her best friend tells her she’s moving away to chase her dreams in Los Angeles. Moving through Kitty’s initial fear of embarking on a new adventure to her giddy snap decision to leave behind what no longer serves her, baby fat, directed by Toronto filmmaker Iris Kim, shows us how sometimes the contemplation of the journey becomes a part of the journey itself.
Iris Kim
Director, Producer, Writer
Based in Los Angeles, by way of middle-of-nowhere Canada, Iris left behind her quiet early life in sleepy suburbia, where she sharpened her eye studying the glossy pages of Teen Vogue, burned her retinas on the pale pink catalogue of John Hughes films, and got lost in fantasies about the elaborate lives of people elsewhere, a curiosity that would later become the foundation for her practice.
Memory has the ability to spark a multitude of feelings, jolting us to relive parts of our past lives. Based on transgender director, author, and athlete Harrison Browne’s real life, Pink Light tells the story of a professional hockey player flashing back to his youth, a transitional time when he was waiting on the brink for life to really begin, while simultaneously closing out a very meaningful chapter. The film explores hard-won hindsight and the complicated feelings of lamenting and honouring our past selves while knowing the current moment embodies the person you were always meant to be.
Harrison Browne
Director, Writer, Actor
Harrison Browne is a filmmaker and author based out of Toronto. Prior to his career in film, he was a professional hockey player in the National Women’s Hockey League (NWHL) and the first out transgender athlete in professional hockey. During his tenure in the NWHL he helped form the first ever transgender policy in professional sports. He was the appointed Inclusion Leader for the NWHL advisory board and special ambassador for the National Hockey League’s Hockey Is For Everyone initiative. Through his efforts, Harrison was recognized in 2016 by The Hockey News as one of hockey’s 100 Top People of Power.
Live audio description is available at this screening for Blind or partially sighted audience members, upon request. More information about this accessibility feature is available at TOpictureshow.com/audio
Thurs, Aug 13, 2026
8:30PM
FREE TO ATTEND
Bell Manor Park
1 Bayside Ln
Toronto, ON
M8Y 1Y9
Founded in Toronto in 1997, Reel Asian is Canada’s largest pan-Asian film festival and a year-round cultural organization dedicated to championing Asian and Asian diasporic artists and storytellers. What began as a grassroots film festival has grown into a national platform supporting filmmakers and audiences through screenings, education, industry initiatives, artist development, and community programming presented across Toronto, the GTA, and online across Canada.
401 Richmond Street West, The Commons (Suite 448)
Toronto, Ontario, M5V 3A8 Canada
(416) 703 – 9333
info@reelasian.com
Charitable number: 870021383RR0001
