YEAR-ROUND E V E N T S
LALI
Lali explores the turbulent union of Zeba and Sajawal, two wounded souls bound by fate. As Sajawal’s insecurities and Zeba’s haunted past threaten their marriage, the film explores the fragile boundaries between love, fear, trauma, and obsession.
Fireflies in the Dark
Fireflies in the Dark explores survival, resilience, and the human cost of civil conflict amidst the ethnic violence that erupted in 2023 in Manipur, Northeast India. Through three interwoven but distinct stories — a pregnant woman struggling to give birth as gunfire surrounds her; a young boy searching for his mother; and a cafe owner who risks her own safety to shelter those fleeing for their lives — Yogesh Lohan offers an intimate portrait of lives caught in the strife.
The Difficult Bride
The Difficult Bride follows Zaineen, a young woman preparing for her marriage. Zaineen is expected to transform herself into an almost perfect bride — beautiful and desirable — and is subjected to a relentless cycle of beauty rituals, home remedies, family advice and expectations surrounding how a bride should look and behave. Rubaiyat has crafted a formally ambitious film, exploring female desire, fear, identity, and the weight of societal expectations with remarkable conviction.
The Enigma of Harold Sonny Ladoo
The Enigma of Harold Sonny Ladoo rescues a 20-year-old archive of video interviews by Trinidadian filmmaker Christopher Laird with the author’s family and Trinidad intimates, and as well as the CanLit luminaries who advanced his career in Toronto. Shot in Trinidad and Toronto, the film pieces together the puzzle of Ladoo’s life and death.
Artists In Conversation: Richard Fung and Shani Mootoo
Join distinguished queer Asian Trinidadian Canadian artists Richard Fung (Professor Emeritus, OCADU) and Shani Mootoo (Ellen and Warren Tallman Writer-in-Residence, SFU) for a wide-ranging conversation about art, activism, and friendship.
Verses of Transformation
Multi-award-winning poet Canisia Lubrin introduced this event at last year’s Festival to great accolade; attendees called it “inspiring and beautiful”, “a pure joy”, and remarked that “Vancouver needs more events like this.” We’re thrilled to bring it back for a second year, featuring a new lineup of poets to shake and wake up your spirit: Jordan Abel, Gwen Aube, Camilla Gibb, Jess Housty, Shani Mootoo, and Lisa Robertson.
Forbidden by Aditi Mangaldas Dance Company
The wondrous depth of carnality lights the fire of Forbidden, Mangaldas’s singular exploration of female sexuality. Couched in gestures both euphemistic and explicit, the language of pleasure is given its fullest expression.
Namaslay
A reimagining of masala cinema, NAMASLAY is a pyroclastic, genre-smashing horror satire that eviscerates the appropriation of Yoga in the West—proving culture is the blood that keeps the dead alive.
THE GYMNASTS OF FISHERMAN COLONY
THE GYMNASTS OF FISHERMAN COLONY is an intimate coming-of-age documentary by 3X Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Habiba Nosheen that follows three teenage girls in Pakistan, offering a rare and tender portrait of girlhood, joy, and play told through the eyes of young Pakistani girls navigating the margins of society.
Dial 1 for UK
Every night in New Delhi, tech-helpline worker Uday Kumar answers customer calls while filling his YouTube channel with glossy visions of the British life he dreams of living. When a chance opportunity lets him trade his headset for a boarding pass, he leaps at the adventure.
Invisibles Rakesh Sukesh Residency Showing
In residency with his new creation Invisibles, Rakesh Sukesh—the artist behind because i love the diversity, this micro-attitude we all have it (PuSh 2024)—confronts the brutal realities of the Kafala system, which has enabled modern-day slavery across parts of the Middle East. Drawing from his own family’s history, he interlaces visceral movement, stark statistics, and documentary theatre to reveal the human cost of economic migration and to ask urgent questions about whose lives and suffering we choose to value. Sukesh weaves ritual dance and funeral song from the Tamil-Nadu region in India into a powerful meditation on grief, dignity, and remembrance.
ganavya
Hailed by The Wall Street Journal as “among modern music’s most compelling vocalists,” ganavya is a boundary-defying artist whose voice and vision transcend genre. For her Vancouver debut at the Chan Centre, she performs music from Nilam—a luminous new work that coalesces lullaby, poetry, and prayer into powerful, poignant music.
Kiran Desai in Conversation
Fans of Kiran Desai’s work have been eagerly awaiting a new novel for nearly 20 years. Her 2006 book, The Inheritance of Loss, won both the Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Masterpieces take time, and it was undeniably worth waiting for The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, which has once again earned her a nomination for The Booker Prize.
Arooj Aftab
Declared “the coolest rock star in the world right now” by UNCUT, and known for her arresting mix of jazz, pop, blues, folk, and Urdu poetry, Arooj Aftab is a Grammy-winning and seven-time Grammy nominated artist. In 2022, she became the first Pakistani artist to win a Grammy for Best Global Music Performance for “Mohabbat”.
Ali Sethi
A master of microtonal singing, Sethi’s music is a rich fusion of traditional qawwali, ghazals, and modern innovation. Following “Pasoori,” he collaborated with electronic producer Nicolás Jaar on Intiha, a “moving tribute to the multiplicity of identity,” (Pitchfork) which premiered to a sold-out crowd at the Chan Centre in November 2024.
Arundhati Roy in Conversation with Naomi Klein
Arundhati Roy speaks with award-winning journalist, author and activist—as well as her longtime friend—Naomi Klein, about her latest book and her work to date, the intricacies of thorny love, and living on the frontlines of humanism.