Entertainment / TIFF 2023: 11 South Asian Films Coming To The Toronto International Film Festival

TIFF 2023: 11 South Asian Films Coming To The Toronto International Film Festival

Entertainment Sep 06, 2023

by Matthew Currie

Anokhi Life’s roundup of the top South Asian films and talent coming to TIFF

Just when they finally got a handle on COVID and its myriad complications, organizers of the Toronto International Film Fest were thrown yet another curveball, as Hollywood’s writers’ and actors’ strikes have made the TIFF red carpet a far less star-studded affair.

But not to worry! As ever, there’s a strong South Asian contingent on this year’s cinematic roster, including a new romantic drama from Mirror Mirror director Tarsem Singh Dhandwar, a gonzo Midnight Madness actioner from Nikhil Nagesh Bhat and another tender coming-of-age dramedy from Hala’s Minhal Baig.

Read on for our breakdown of the Indian and Pakistani films lighting up TIFF 2023.

A Match

In director Jayant Digambar Somalkar’s debut feature, a brilliant young woman (Nandini Chikte) pursuing a sociology degree in college battles against the societal forces pushing her towards arranged marriage. Doing interviews with her prospective husbands’ condescending families, she’s deemed “too dark-skinned, too short, too poor.” But for Savita, it’s the patriarchy that’s a hard SWIPE LEFT.

Match1 — **Our TIFF 2023 Preview: Nandini Chikte pushes back against arranged marriage in *A Match*.** Photo Credit: www.tiff.net

Dear Jassi

Having helmed music videos for R.E.M. and Lady Gaga, as well as Hollywood blockbusters like JLO-starring psychological thriller The Cell and Julia Roberts-led Snow White riff Mirror Mirror, Tarsem Singh Dhandwar has been absent from the big screen for nearly a decade.

Now, he returns to lend his dazzling visual style to a true story about the dark, bittersweet, Romeo and Juliet-esque saga that plays out between a Canadian girl (Pavia Sidhu) visiting family in Jagraon, India, and the rickshaw driver (Yugam Sood) her family will never accept as a suitor.

Dear Jassi1 — **Our TIFF 2023 Preview: Yugam Sood and Pavia Sidhu are a modern-day Romeo and Juliet in Tarsem Singh Dhandwar’s Dear Jassi**. Photo Credit: www.tiff.net

I Am Sirat

Never one to stagnate, iconic Canadian filmmaker Deepa Mehta (Midnight’s Children) returns to TIFF with a documentary she co-directed with Sirat Taneja — the latter of whom is also the film’s subject.

Shot largely on a smartphone, I Am Sirat offers a uniquely intimate glimpse into the double life led by a transgender woman in New Delhi, who is free to be her authentic self out in the world with friends and co-workers, yet must masquerade as the man she was never meant to be while at home caring for her highly conservative mother.

Sirat1 — **Our TIFF 2023 Preview: Transgender director Sirat Taneja tells her story, in her words, with her iPhone . . . with a little help from Canadian icon Deepa Mehta.** Photo Credit: www.tiff.net

In Flames

A poignant, incisive drama with a touch of the supernatural, Pakistani-Canadian director Zarrar Kahn weaves the tale of Mariam (Ramesha Nawal), a young medical student in Karachi who struggles to hold her family together after the death of her grandfather. Shouldering work, grief, dwindling finances, an inconsolable mother and deeply ingrained cultural misogyny as personified by a shady uncle who shows up anointing himself their new patriarch, Mariam also finds herself stalked by a mysterious otherworldly force.

In his preview, TIFF’s Norm Wilner compares In Flames to “Guillermo del Toro’s empathetic ghost stories, in which spirits return with agendas the living cannot fully comprehend.”

In Flames1 — **Our TIFF 2023 Preview: A Pakistani med student (Ramesha Nawal) is haunted by grief, misogyny and maybe an actual ghost.** Photo Credit: www.tiff.net

KILL

Adding a little South Asian flavour to TIFF’s infamous Midnight Madness slate, Nikhil Nagesh Bhat’s over-the-top action pic finds a lovesick soldier (Lakshya) hopping aboard a train that’s carrying his true love (A Suitable Boy’s Tanya Maniktala) to New Delhi for an unwanted arranged marriage.

Alas, an army of vicious bandits also makes its way onto the locomotive, turning this from a figurative rescue mission into a literal one — and forcing our young hero to unleash his particular set of skills. Some truly spectacular violence ensues.

KILL1 — **Our TIFF 2023 Preview: A commando (Lakshya) fights his way through 40 thieves to save the love of his life in Midnight Madness extravaganza KILL.** Photo Credit: www.tiff.net

Lost Ladies

A comedy of errors that skewers the patriarchy with a chuckle, this loopy farce, set in rural India circa 2001, finds two brides (Nitanshi Goel, Pratibha Ranta) who — still heavily veiled in their marital saris — accidentally switch places following a mix-up on an overnight train. Their unexpected new circumstances compel both women to re-examine their lives and broaden their horizons.

It’s the second feature from filmmaker Kiran Rao, who returns to TIFF 13 years after her debut film, Dhobi Ghat (Bombay Diaries).

Lost Ladies1 — **Our TIFF 2023 Preview: Separated from their respective grooms, two brides embark on life-changing, rib-tickling journey.** Photo Credit: www.tiff.net

The Queen of My Dreams

After her father’s sudden, shocking death, a queer Muslim grad student flies to Pakistan, where a poignant reckoning with her estranged mother awaits. Cutting back and forth between 1999 and 1969, Canadian director Fawzia Mirza “mashes up the textures of Indian cinema and a Canadian coming-of-age picture.”

Said mash-up offers The Sex Lives of College Girls’ Amrit Kaur the chance to showcase her boundless dramedic talents as both daughter Azra and the younger version of mother Mariam — whom, divided though they may be, have more in common than either of them are quite willing to admit. Transplant star Hamza Haq also pulls double duty as the older and younger versions of dad Hassan.

Queen of My Dreams1 — **Our TIFF 2023 Preview: Amrit Kaur and Hamza Haq shine playing dual roles in time-jumping coming-of-age dramedy *The Queen of My Dreams*.** Photo Credit: www.tiff.net

Thank You for Coming

About to say “I do” to a groom who is far from the man of her dreams, 32-year-old Kanika (Bhumi Pednekar) finds herself rethinking everything when she wakes up the morning after her engagement party having had the first orgasm of her life. The only problem is, she can’t remember who she slept with. Her fiancé? One of her exes? Her friend’s fella? It’s all a blur. And so begins a Hangover-esque odyssey to piece together the previous night, and, just maybe, find Mr. Right Spot.

Unicorns

A working-class single father (Bohemian Rhapsody’s Ben Hardy) finds himself unexpectedly drawn to a femme drag queen (Jason Patel) after stumbling into London’s underground “gaysian” community. The connection is both mutual and undeniable, but is that magnetic pull strong enough to overcome the personal baggage and societal expectations threatening to drag them down at every turn?

We Grown Now

Having made her feature debut at TIFF 2019 with Hala (which went on to become the very first film acquired by streamer Apple TV+), writer-director Minhal Baig returns with another nuanced coming-of-age drama — this one set in Chicago’s infamous Cabrini-Green housing project circa 1992. As the complex descends into crime, disrepair and all-round urban decay, two 12-year-old boys (Blake Cameron James, Gian Knight Ramirez) find their way in the world . . . until circumstances conspire to tear them apart.

Lovecraft Country’s Jurnee Smollett and Law & Order legend S. Epatha Merkerson also star.

We Grown Now1 — **Our TIFF 2023 Preview: Two young Chicagoans grow up and grow apart in *Hala* director Minhal Baig’s *We Grown Now*.** Photo Credit: www.tiff.net

The World Is Family

Firebrand documentarian Anand Patwardhan (Father, Son, and Holy War) gets more personal than ever before, nonetheless still exploring some of the most profound issues that define and divide South Asia. Specifically, the director profiles various branches of his own family tree against the backdrop of India’s fight for independence from British rule and the resulting chasm between Hindus and Muslims in the wake of Partition.

World Is Family1 — **Our TIFF 2023 Preview: Anand Padwardhan examines Indian independence through the lens of his own, divided family.** Photo Credit: www.tiff.net

The 2023 Toronto International Film Festival runs from Thursday, September 7, through Sunday, September 17. Visit tiff.net for more information on screening times, venues and tickets.

Main Image Photo Credit: www.tiff.net

Matthew Currie

Author

A long-standing entertainment journalist, Currie is a graduate of the Professional Writing program at Toronto’s York University. He has spent the past number of years working as a freelancer for ANOKHI and for diverse publications such as Sharp, TV Week, CAA’s Westworld and BC Business. Currie ...

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TIFF 2023: 11 South Asian Films Coming To The Toronto International Film Festival

by Matthew Currie

Matthew Currie

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