Pink Asparagus

This panel, featuring director Fawzia Mirza, producer Andrea Wilson Mirza, director Zarrar Khan and producer Anam Abbas was a discussion on how emerging filmmakers can break into the industry and kickstart their first feature.

Fawzia Mirza, director of The Queen of My Dreams screening at TIFF 2023, is an ex lawyer who decided to start acting and writing in the hopes of being successful in the world of film. She’s funny, sharp, charming— all while discussing how she navigates being a queer Muslim filmmaker. Her shortcuts to features are: 

• She made her first few movies by always being like “let’s do this, let’s make this, I’ll buy u lunch, can I borrow your camera”.  
• She still made movies, even though she didn’t understand film as an accessible path or possibility.
• She made A LOT of short films.  
• She found great collaborators in her friends and in the industry.
• She applied to a lot of programs including CBC gems.

Andria Wilson Mirza started out in film as an actress and arts manager. Her strength is to connect talented people to resources and to strategize about completing a production. Her short cuts to features are:

• Make shorts! They are the root that feeds the feature by helping you develop skill, build strategy and find people you like working with.
• Spend time looking for funding! Opportunities are out there.

Zarrar Khan is a Pakistani-Canadian filmmaker whose first feature In Flames premiered at Cannes this year. He’s a longtime director who didn’t feel voices like his were being represented in film or at major festivals. His short cuts to features are:  

• He set up a theatre production company with his friends, and they started making short films together.
• He made a lot of shorts which helped build to his feature.
• He took searched for and took advantage of free labs and fellowships. He mentioned that a lot of international ones can be very accessible.
• He was always very anti imposter syndrome and pro “fake it till u make it”.
• He once took a $500 loan from his dad to make a movie that he really believed in. He wasn’t able to finish it and ran out of time and money, but he had gotten a few beautiful shots. He cut a trailer with those shots and created a kickstarter campaign noting that the film had one or two scenes to shoot. He got 8k and the film was terrible but the trailer went viral and a producer found him.
• He always put himself out there and considered the internet as his friend. 
• He used the tools at his disposal to get where he needed to get.
• He went through Telefilm’s Microbudget program.

Overall the takeaways from this panel for emerging filmmakers are that you should make films as often as possible using resources that you need to hunt for endlessly. The panel was very informative, but it largely confirmed what we were all suspecting: this is going to be hard and there won’t be any money in it now, or possible ever. The last thing I’ll note is that Reel Asian also has a yearly pitch competition for emerging filmmakers. We’re also currently writing a short here at Pink Asparagus at the moment, so if you’re looking to get involved on a film, please fill out our contact form.