Fawzia Mirza is a

Canadian Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...

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 A web series (also known as webseries, short-form series, and web show) is a series of short scripted or non-scripted online videos, generally in episodic form, released on the Internet (i.e. World Wide Web), which first emerged in the late 1 ...

'' Kam Kardashian'' and ''Brown Girl Problems.'' She directed on the 2025 Hulu series ''Deli Boys.''

Personal life

Mirza was born in London, Ontario, Canada, and grew up in

Sydney, Nova Scotia Sydney is a former city and urban community on the east coast of Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia, Canada within the Cape Breton Regional Municipality. Sydney was founded in 1785 by the British, was incorporated as a city in 1904, and dissolv ...

. Her parents were born in India and migrated to Pakistan; they eventually moved to Indiana, where Mirza finished high school before relocating to Chicago. Mirza

came out Coming out of the closet, often shortened to coming out, is a metaphor used to describe LGBTQ people's self-disclosure of their sexual orientation, romantic orientation, or gender identity. This is often framed and debated as a privacy issue, ...

as a Muslim

lesbian A lesbian is a homosexual woman or girl. The word is also used for women in relation to their sexual identity or sexual behavior, regardless of sexual orientation, or as an adjective to characterize or associate nouns with female homosexu ...

in 2016, and describes herself as "a lesbian, Muslim, Pakistani, actor, activist, writer, producer, lawyer and creature of passion". Mirza lives in Los Angeles, California. She is married to film producer and media inclusion advocate Andria Wilson Mirza.

Film and web series

Mirza majored in English and political science at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana and then moved to Chicago for law school at Chicago-Kent College of Law. After two and a half years of working as a litigator, she changed professions to become an actor. She has focused on projects relating to the LGBT community, particularly relating to being a queer Muslim woman, "to gain visibility for women and Brown performers, and find space for queer stories". Her first short film ''The Queen of My Dreams'' she co-wrote, co-directed with collaborator Ryan Logan. As a young girl, Fawzia Mirza fell under the spell of Bollywood heroines and their promise of love and feminine perfection. As an adult, she looks back and re-imagines the epic romance in the classic film Aradhana, in a queer light. Her one-woman show ''Me, My Mom and Sharmila'' explores growing up queer and South Asian; in 2015 she performed it at the International Theatre Festival at the

National College of Arts The National College of Arts (colloquially known as NCA) is a public university located in Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan. Overview The National College of Arts – Federally Chartered Institute, is the oldest art school in Pakistan and the second ...

Lahore Lahore ( ; ; ) is the capital and largest city of the Administrative units of Pakistan, Pakistani province of Punjab, Pakistan, Punjab. It is the List of cities in Pakistan by population, second-largest city in Pakistan, after Karachi, and ...

. Also in 2015, she appeared in Emmy-nominated ''Her Story'', a six-part series on the lives of trans and queer women. Mirza plays Ayesha Ali Trump, a fictional Muslim daughter of

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who is the 47th president of the United States. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he served as the 45 ...

, in the

mockumentary A mockumentary (a portmanteau of ''mock'' and ''documentary'') is a type of film or television show depicting fictional events, but presented as a Documentary film, documentary. Mockumentaries are often used to analyze or comment on current event ...

''The Muslim Trump Documentary''. She has made a number of award-winning short films including ''The First Session'', ''Spunkle'', ''Reclaiming Pakistan'', ''The Streets Are Ours'', ''Saya'' and ''I Know Her..'' In 2016, she announced her film ''Signature Move'' (2017) starring

Shabana Azmi Shabana Azmi (born 18 September 1950) is an Indian actress of film, television and theatre. Her career in the Hindi cinema, Hindi film industry has spanned Shabana Azmi filmography, over 160 films, mostly within independent and neorealist paral ...

in the role of her mother. Fawzia produced, starred in and co-wrote with Lisa Donato. The film world premiered at SXSW and won over 14 awards all over the world, including the Jury Prize for US Narrative at Outfest, Best Narrative Film at Columbus International, Best Director and Best Actress at Out San Diego, Audience Award for Best Narrative in Connecticut, and Mirza won a Jury prize at the Canadian South Asian Mosaic Film Festival. The film was inspired by her actual ex-girlfriend and their relationship in the city of Chicago. She wrote for the CBS show ''The Red Line'' executive produced by Ava Duvernay and Greg Berlanti. Her episode marked the first instance of a gay-Muslim romance on network television. In 2020, her feature screenplay adaptation of '' The Queen of My Dreams'' was accepted into the Toronto International Film Festival Writers Studio and Filmmaker Lab, under the working title ''Me, My Mom & Sharmila''. She was one of five women selected to FUSE 2, Paul Feig's writer/director incubator program and will develop a short film with Powderkeg in 2021. In 2021, she was added to Peter Luo's Starlight Media's Stars Collective. '' The Queen of My Dreams'' was nominated for 5 Canadian Screen Awards, including Best Adapted Screenplay for Fawzia Mirza. It won 2 awards, Best Performance in A Drama (Amrit Kaur) and Best Original Song. Kaur's speech went viral for her support of Palestine. She was co-winner, with

Karen Knox Karen Knox is a Canadian director, actor, and writer. She is the show runner of ''Slo Pitch (web series), Slo Pitch'', and ''Homeschooled'' on CBC Television, CBC, which she wrote, directed, and starred in. She received the DGC Award for Best Dir ...

for '' We Forgot to Break Up'', of the DGC Award for Best Direction in a Feature Film in 2024 for ''The Queen of My Dreams''.Alex Nino Gheciu
"‘Queen of My Dreams,’ ‘We Forgot to Break Up’ tie for top Directors Guild award"
''

Brandon Sun ''The Brandon Sun'' is a Monday through Saturday newspaper printed in Brandon, Manitoba. It is the primary newspaper of record for western Manitoba and includes substantial political, crime, business and sports news. ''The Brandon Sun'' also pub ...

'', October 28, 2024.

Filmography

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Mirza, Fawzia Living people Year of birth missing (living people) 21st-century Canadian actresses 21st-century Canadian dramatists and playwrights 21st-century Canadian LGBTQ people 21st-century Canadian women writers Asian-Canadian filmmakers Canadian film actresses Canadian lesbian actresses Canadian lesbian writers Canadian LGBTQ comedians Canadian LGBTQ film directors Canadian stage actresses Canadian Muslims Canadian women dramatists and playwrights Canadian women film directors Lesbian Muslims Muslim women comedians Pakistani emigrants to Canada Pakistani lesbian actresses Pakistani lesbian writers Pakistani LGBTQ comedians Film directors from Ontario Canadian LGBTQ screenwriters 21st-century Canadian screenwriters Canadian women screenwriters Muhajir people