Quickening is not the first film of its kind. The gorgeous but disorienting debut feature from Haya Waseem feels eerily similar to Minhal Baig’s debut, Hala. In Hala, which premiered at Sundance in 2019, a young Pakistani American high school senior grapples with the tensions between who she is at home and who she is becoming at school. Faith, tradition and sexuality clash in a similar way in Quickening, which, while not a replica of Hala, is bound to draw comparisons.
The film opens with Sheila (Arooj Azeem), a 19-year-old performing arts student, lying among a sea of bodies dressed in black. This is her ...
The film opens with Sheila (Arooj Azeem), a 19-year-old performing arts student, lying among a sea of bodies dressed in black. This is her ...
- 9/24/2021
- The Hollywood Reporter - Film + TV
Quickening is not the first film of its kind. The gorgeous but disorienting debut feature from Haya Waseem feels eerily similar to Minhal Baig’s debut, Hala. In Hala, which premiered at Sundance in 2019, a young Pakistani American high school senior grapples with the tensions between who she is at home and who she is becoming at school. Faith, tradition and sexuality clash in a similar way in Quickening, which, while not a replica of Hala, is bound to draw comparisons.
The film opens with Sheila (Arooj Azeem), a 19-year-old performing arts student, lying among a sea of bodies dressed in black. This is her ...
The film opens with Sheila (Arooj Azeem), a 19-year-old performing arts student, lying among a sea of bodies dressed in black. This is her ...
- 9/24/2021
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Writer-director Haya Waseem’s feature debut Quickening is not about a pregnancy. Knowing this is crucial enough that she opens the film with the definition of pseudocyesis—a false pregnancy wherein the woman experiences all symptoms of being pregnant without there ever being a fetus. Without it we would focus too much on what Sheila (Arooj Azeem) having a baby during her freshman year at college would mean for her future rather than accept it as the product of all the stress she’s endured from family, friends, romance, heartbreak, and just being a young woman of color trying to reconcile the demands of her cultural heritage against those of her Canadian home’s potential for independence outside it. Playing everything “safe” is no longer an option.
Not playing everything “safe” is terrifying, though. Waseem uses Sheila’s major in performing arts as a metaphor for her inability to fully let go of her upbringing,...
Not playing everything “safe” is terrifying, though. Waseem uses Sheila’s major in performing arts as a metaphor for her inability to fully let go of her upbringing,...
- 9/15/2021
- by Jared Mobarak
- The Film Stage
Haya Waseem’s Quickening is part of a new wave of immigrant films from Canadian filmmakers telling first-generation tales of having to choose between freedom and family duty in a new and strange land.
“It’s a coming-of-age story, but the character comes of age in Canada,” says Waseem, who was born in Pakistan and raised in Switzerland before immigrating to Canada at age 16. Quickening combines YA angst with an immigration tale, told from the perspective of a 19-year-old woman in a Canadian Pakistani household in Toronto.
“To me, Canada is a very neutral environment. The benefit of being Canadian is that ...
“It’s a coming-of-age story, but the character comes of age in Canada,” says Waseem, who was born in Pakistan and raised in Switzerland before immigrating to Canada at age 16. Quickening combines YA angst with an immigration tale, told from the perspective of a 19-year-old woman in a Canadian Pakistani household in Toronto.
“To me, Canada is a very neutral environment. The benefit of being Canadian is that ...
- 9/12/2021
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Haya Waseem’s Quickening is part of a new wave of immigrant films from Canadian filmmakers telling first-generation tales of having to choose between freedom and family duty in a new and strange land.
“It’s a coming-of-age story, but the character comes of age in Canada,” says Waseem, who was born in Pakistan and raised in Switzerland before immigrating to Canada at age 16. Quickening combines YA angst with an immigration tale, told from the perspective of a 19-year-old woman in a Canadian Pakistani household in Toronto.
“To me, Canada is a very neutral environment. The benefit of being Canadian is that ...
“It’s a coming-of-age story, but the character comes of age in Canada,” says Waseem, who was born in Pakistan and raised in Switzerland before immigrating to Canada at age 16. Quickening combines YA angst with an immigration tale, told from the perspective of a 19-year-old woman in a Canadian Pakistani household in Toronto.
“To me, Canada is a very neutral environment. The benefit of being Canadian is that ...
- 9/12/2021
- The Hollywood Reporter - Film + TV
BenedictionThe lineup has been unveiled for the 2021 edition of the Toronto International Film Festival, which will take place over 10 days (September 9-18) both in-person and physically in Toronto, and digitally across Canada. Wavelengths - FEATURESFutura (Pietro Marcello, Francesco Munzi, Alice Rohrwacher)The Girl and the Spider (Ramon Zürcher, Silvan Zürcher)Neptune Frost (Saul Williams, Anisia Uzeyman)A Night of Knowing Nothing (Payal Kapadia)Ste. Anne (Rhayne Vermette)The Tsugua Diaries (Maureen Fazendeiro, Miguel Gomes)Wavelengths - SHORTSThe Capacity for Adequate Anger (Vika Kirchenbauer)Dear Chantal (Querida Chantal) (Nicolás Pereda)earthearthearth (Daïchi Saïto)Inner Outer Space (Laida Lertxundi)Polycephaly in D (Michael Robinson)“The red filter is withdrawn.” (Minjung Kim)Train Again (Peter Tscherkassky)Midnight Madness After Blue (Dirty Paradise) (Bertrand Mandico)Dashcam (Rob Savage)Saloum (Jean Luc Herbulot)Titane (Julia Ducournau)You Are Not My Mother (Kate Dolan)Zalava (Arsalan Amiri)TIFF DOCSAttica (Stanley Nelson)Beba (Rebeca Huntt)Becoming Cousteau...
- 8/4/2021
- MUBI
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