Me, My Mom & Sharmila: Nimra Bucha set to star in Fawzia Mirza's Canadian film

Pakistani star Nimra Bucha, who was recently lauded for her acting prowess in Marvel's much-anticipated show, Ms. Marvel, has landed yet another international project. The actor will next be seen in Me, My Mom & Sharmila, the feature directorial debut of writer-director Fawzia Mirza.

According to Variety, the film stars Amrit Kaur, popularly known for Mindy Kaling and Justin Noble’s HBO Max series The Sex Lives of College Girls and Hamza Haq, who won the best actor in 2021 and 2022 at the Canadian Screen Awards for CTV medical drama Transplant and Bucha.

Taking to Instagram, an elated Mirza shared, "My feature directorial debut starring Amrit Kaur, Hamza Haq and Nimra Bucha in this feature inspired from my one person play of the same name Me, My Mom & Sharmila." She went on to express gratitude and added, "I cannot begin to tell you how thrilled I am for this cast and how proud I am of my incredible producing team without whom I would not be here."

Mirza concluded, "It takes a village and there are so many people without whom we couldn’t have gotten here. Stay tuned y’all."

Bucha, too, shared the news of the photo-sharing application. "So happy!" she wrote while sharing the news piece, confirming her slot in the show.

Kaur felt lucky to have been working with trailblazers. "I am thrilled to be telling this beautiful and important story alongside these brilliant South-Asian trailblazers. Fawzia, thank you for trusting me; I intend to give your story my absolute heart and soul." Speaking about Bucha, Kaur added, "I cannot wait to meet and learn from you." For Haq, she shared, "And dearest Hamza, you are the biggest gift. From the first scene partner in acting class to this. Let’s make art!"

She went on to thank Bollywood actor Sharmila Tagore as well. "To the Great Sharmila Tagore, thank you for leading the way for all the little brown girls who proudly saw you share your sensuality on the big screen. Me, My Mom, & Sharmila."

Set in 1999, the film follows Azra (Kaur) over 48 hours as she travels from her home in Canada to her parents’ homeland of Pakistan to bury her father (Haq). Azra struggles to connect with her conservative mother Mariam (Bucha), but her return to Pakistan launches her into memories both real and imagined that reveal their unexpected similarities.

Adapted from Mirza’s stage play of the same name, Me, My Mom & Sharmila is produced by Jason Levangie and Marc Tetreault. “It is about me and it is a story of my relationship with my mother, told through a shared love for the famous desi actor Sharmila Tagore," Mirza had shared about her book in a conversation with The Express Tribune in 2015.

In essence, it is a story of love, family, relationships, identity and an eternal struggle of children, who may be different from, yet similar to, their parents. Presented in a classic one-person show, the play has minimal staging, costuming and lights and bare sound cues throughout to texture the stories. It is essentially what Mirza calls “very raw theatre.”

“I feel very connected to Pakistan, to the people. My dad is buried in Karachi. I sometimes call myself a ‘slash’ – I’m American/Pakistani, so it’s half-and-half," she had said. Born in Canada, Mirza moved to the United States when she was 17. Mirza practiced law for three years in the US.

For Mirza, every show of the same monologue is a little different and every audience is a little different. “I improvise some lines here and there. It’s a comedy and a drama with educational stuff in it. The most painful things can be so funny. Humour is the most common emotion we have.”

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