SXSW 2024: The Queen of My Dreams Cast Talks On Set Mishaps and Family Connection
Azra finds herself on a Bollywood inspired journey through memories after her father dies suddenly on a trip home to Pakistan. These memories are both real and imagined, but originate from both her estranged mother’s youth in Karachi and her own coming of age in rural Canada. Pop Culture Planet’s Jordan Bohan spoke with the cast and crew at the SXSW 2024 world premiere of The Queen Of My Dreams.
Amrit Kaur is best known for her eccentric and comedic role of Bela in Sex Lives of College Girls. She tends to live in roles with a mix of drama and comedy, bringing very special and unique characters to life. When questioned if her most famous and most recent characters would be friends in real life, Kaur gave an interesting answer. “I think Bela is much louder than Azra. They would both think they're too cool for school but neither of them are, but in their own ways,” she shared. “Azra is more like ‘I have a dick,’ Bela is like ‘I like dick,’ and there's some sort of a block there.”
Much like her character Bela, Amrit shares a desire to make people laugh. “I think I'm supposed to make people laugh in this lifetime, so I think that's important. I think there's a lot of healing in brilliant comedians and I want to be like brilliant at comedy one day,” said Kaur, with director Fawzia Mirza echoing the sentiment: “I'm so thrilled for folks to see Amrit Kaur's performance. She doesn't do one role brilliantly, she does two. If you like her on HBO’s Sex Lives of College Girls, she is just as remarkable in this. It makes me emotional because she's so good. I'm excited for folks to see her work.”
The Queen of My Dreams has themes of family, loss, and healing, but the heavy subject matter does come with some lightness. “I think they’re mirrors of ourselves. We’re quite hard on our parents and we've been taught to worship them as a society, but what if they're just humans that are flawed?” Kaur shared. “The things we don't like in our parents and our families are maybe things that we don't like in ourselves.”
“Stay true to yourself and stay true with your family,” added co-star Ayana Manji, with Mirza continuing: “If folks leave this movie feeling their heart full of love, that feels like a win.”
Though being an actor has its glamour, Amrit shared that each production has its own perks and unique memories. “This is the first time I've been on a set and had authentic chai every day,” Kaur shared. “The first day of set I had food poisoning so, as we were going to leave for the first take, I had to run into my trailer and I vomited and shat in my underwear simultaneously.”
Director Fawzia Mirza had a very personal connection to the story, telling Pop Culture Planet about how she incorporates her lived experiences into her scripts and directing style. “I definitely bring my perspective and my experiences to everything I write or direct. There's definitely a little bit of me and some of the things I've experienced or seen in the film. Also, it's inspired by fantasy, collecting history, collecting memory. I'm hoping that folks see a little bit of themselves in the film as well,” Mirza explained. “In work that I write, I'm always centering folks who are not often at the center of the story. Queer folks, folks of color, trans folks, Muslim people. That's always really important to me and I do think that the way we can change the world is through our storytelling. The way to liberation is through liberating who's at the center of the story so that's definitely something always important to me.”
The Queen of My Dreams premiered at SXSW.
