Fawzia Mirza

S1E5 - Check Out Time at the Patel Motel Cartel

Fawzia Mirza (she/they) is a queer, Muslim, South Asian film and television writer and director. Fawzia’s first feature film, SIGNATURE MOVE, which she co-wrote, produced and stars in, world premiered at SXSW, screened 150+ film festivals globally, won 14 awards (Outfest Grand Jury Prize, Best US Narrative), is distributed by Music Box Films (North America) and Bohemia (UK). She wrote on the CBS drama series THE RED LINE, executive produced by Greg Berlanti and Ava Duvernay (her episode marked the first instance of queer, Muslim romance on network TV). Her short film NOOR & LAYLA about queer Muslim love is on the festival circuit having screened at Blackstar, Bentonville, Outfest and many more. She directed the holiday film THE SYED FAMILY XMAS EVE GAME NIGHT which world premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, was named to ‘Canada’s Top Ten’ and one of the ‘Best Christmas Movies of 2022’ by Harpers Bazaar. Fawzia was also selected as a 2021TIFF/Birks Diamond Canadian filmmaker honoree. She directed and co-wrote (with Kausar Mohammed) BROWN ELEPHANT for 20th Digital Studio for its ‘Bite Size Holiday’ series. Her latest short she wrote/directed AUNTIE world premieres Spring of this year and was part of the Powderkeg Fuse program and executive produced by Paul Feig. She’s in the Canadian Academy of Women Directors program and her feature screenplay ME, MY MOM & SHARMILA was in TIFF’s 2020 Writer Studio and Filmmaker Lab, has been funded by Telefilm Canada and enters production 2022 in Canada and Karachi. You can see her work that she wrote and directed on the soapy LGBTQ series HIDDEN CANYONS which just released season 2 on instagram and Tiktok.