REGIONAL spotlight: Southwest Asia & North Africa
Toronto Outdoor Picture Show is thrilled to introduce a new programme spotlight, curated specifically for our 15th anniversary season. The Spotlight on SWANA Stories includes films by Canadian women filmmakers of the Southwest Asian and North African (SWANA) diaspora whose films touch on the coming of age theme that drives this summer’s film selection. Spotlight on SWANA Stories will highlight seven shorts and one feature film dotted throughout the When We Were Young programme this summer.
The centrepiece of this programme spotlight takes place on July 17th at Corktown Common when Canadian-Lebanese filmmaker Amber Fares’ acclaimed feature documentary about women’s competitive race car driving in Palestine, Speed Sisters, will screen alongside Canadian-Palestinian director Fateema Al-Hamaydeh Miller’s short film Mawtini (My Homeland) and Iranian-Canadian filmmaker Nedda Sarshar’s short Unibrow.
Rounding out the Spotlight on SWANA Stories are the short films Motherland (Jasmin Mozaffari), Hair! (Sara Jade Alfaro-Dehghani), Don’t Forget the Water (Christina Haijar), Déraciné (Rolla Tahir), and The Skates (Halima Ouardiri).
These filmmakers, each in their own unique ways, explore the complexities of growing up as members of SWANA cultures, celebrating the joy of community and rich traditions that persevere across generations, challenging stereotypes and societal expectations, and confronting anti-Arab racism, xenophobia, and misogyny. We invite you to learn more about these filmmakers below and by experiencing their films over the course of this summer’s programme.
THE EIGHT FILMS IN THE SPOTLIGHT ON SWANA STORIES PROGRAMME ARE LISTED BELOW, ALONG WITH THEIR DATES AND LOCATIONS
Motherland
FORT YORK
FRIDAY JUNE 13, 2025
Screening with feature film Lovers Rock and short film Nouvel An
Jasmin Mozaffari, Writer-Director-Producer, Motherland
Jasmin Mozaffari is an award-winning Toronto-based Iranian-Canadian film and television writer-director known for her bold and evocative storytelling. Her 2023 short film Motherland is inspired by her parents’ experiences during the 1979 Iran hostage crisis.
Hair!
FORT YORK
TUESDAY JUNE 17, 2025
Screening with feature film Clueless
Sara Jade Alfaro-Dehghani, Writer-Director, Hair!
Sara Jade Alfaro-Dehghani is a writer, filmmaker, and commercial director of Iranian and Mexican heritage, whose early immersion in cultural contradictions shapes her distinct, multilingual voice.
Her work — spanning Super Bowl spots, and campaigns featuring Taika Waititi — blends whimsy, sensitivity, and surreal humour, with her latest short film Hair! showcasing her signature blend of cultural nuance, offbeat comedy, and hyperactive storytelling.
THE SKATES
CHRISTIE PITS
SUNDAY JULY 13, 2025
Screening with feature film
The Royal Tenenbaums &
short film Life Doesn’t Frighten Me
Halima Ouardiri, Director-Producer, The Skates
Halima Ouardiri is a Swiss-Moroccan film director, screenwriter, and producer, based in Montreal. Her award-winning short film The Skates is partly influenced by her own childhood memories of growing up in Geneva. Halima is currently working on her first feature film, The Camel Driving School.
Speed Sisters
CORKTOWN COMMON
THURSDAY JULY 17, 2025
Screening with short films
Mawtini (My Homeland)
& Unibrow
Amber Fares, Director-Producer, Speed Sisters
Amber Fares is an award-winning Canadian-Lebanese documentary filmmaker based in New York. She is best known for her directing début Speed Sisters, an intimate portrait of the first Palestinian all-women race car driving team. Her work often explores diverse cultural narratives and social issues.
Her latest film, Coexistence, My Ass! (Sundance 2025 Special Jury Prize), follows comedian-activist Noam Shuster Eliassi. It recently had its Canadian premiere at Hot Docs, and continues on the festival circuit this year.
MAWTINI (MY HOMELAND)
CORKTOWN COMMON
THURSDAY JULY 17, 2025
Screening with feature film Speed Sisters
& short film Unibrow
Fateema Al-Hamaydeh Miller, Director, Mawtini (My Homeland)
Fateema is an award-winning Palestinian-Canadian filmmaker whose work explores fragmented identity, grief and connection through a style of “oh no, should I laugh?” comedy. She is passionate about creating nuanced representation of Arabs and Muslims for the screen and believes in resistance and resilience through laughter.
UNIBROW
CORKTOWN COMMON
THURSDAY JULY 17, 2025
Screening with feature film Speed Sisters
& short film Mawtini (My Homeland)
Nedda Sarshar, Writer-Director, Unibrow
Nedda Sarshar is an Irani-Canadian writer and filmmaker based in the GTA. Nedda is interested in stories that delve into the messiness of life in the diaspora, influenced by her parents' experience resettling in Canada in the ‘80s.
Don’t Forget the water
CHRISTIE PITS PARK
SUNDAY JULY 27, 2025
Screening with feature film Past Lives
& short film Distant Cousins
Christina Hajjar, Director, Don’t Forget the Water
Christina Hajjar is a Lebanese artist, writer, and cultural worker based in Winnipeg. Her practice considers intergenerational inheritance, domesticity, and place through diaspora and cultural iconography, as seen in her experimental short Don’t Forget the Water. As a queer femme and first-generation subject, she is invested in the poetics of process, translation, and collaborative labour.
Déraciné
CHRISTIE PITS PARK
SUNDAY AUGUST 10, 2025
Screening with feature film When Morning Comes
& short film
On a Sunday at Eleven
Rolla Tahir, Writer-Director, Déraciné
Originally from Sudan, and growing up in Egypt, Rolla Tahir is a Nubian-Canadian filmmaker and director of photography based in Toronto. She’s lensed short, narrative and experimental films, which screened across Canada and internationally. Rolla is also the founder of Qan Yama Qan Films, a Toronto-based production company focused on championing diasporic narratives that combine formal ingenuity and unique voices.