Ayana Manji

In the late 90s, 13-year-old Ilyas is uprooted from his private school and thrust into public school. Battling deep insecurities over his prepubescent mustache, he hatches a wild plan to get back to his old life and find himself.

The complex power of the hijab, and how a seemingly simple piece of cloth embodies both what the wearer imbues it with and what society project onto to it, through the lens of two different young women.

Azra is worlds apart from her conservative Muslim mother. When her father suddenly dies on a trip home to Pakistan, Azra finds herself on a Bollywood-inspired journey through memories, both real and imagined; from her mother’s youth in Karachi to her own coming- of-age in rural Canada.

When former Princeton music professor Arthur Cochran unexpectedly stumbles into choir practice at a small-town church, he finds a group of singers that are out of tune in more ways than one.