bio
Haaris Qadri is an emerging filmmaker based in London and Toronto and a graduate from York University’s Bachelor of Fine Arts in Film Production Specialized Honours.
His short film majboor-e-mamool recently screened at the Montreal Festival du Nouveau, was featured on the Short of The Week and won Best Canadian Short Film presented by the National Film Board of Canada at the Canadian Academy recognized film festival, Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival. He has also screened at the 2023 TIFF Next Wave Film Festival and the Canadian Film Festival. His previous short film, Kashif, screened at the 2020 TIFF Next Wave Film Festival and the Academy recognized, Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival.
Haaris aims to create films that explore the ordinary, focusing on mundane moments that can spark emotion and change. Haaris is drawn to diasporic stories, contemplating ideas of identity, familial disconnect and intergenerational differences.
Most recently Haaris was selected for IFFSA’s Bright Lights Talent Program which supported the creation of his latest project, majboor-e-mamool. Haaris was also shortlisted for Sundance Institute Episodic Labs with his pilot Bintu’s Weddings and later went on to develop the script with Anthony Q. Farrell with the Warner Brothers Access x BIPOC TV and Film Episodic Labs.
As an alum of the Unsung Voices, a filmmaking mentorship program led by the Toronto International Reel Asian Film Festival, he has gone to sit on the shorts programming committee and as a features pre-screener for the festival. In 2020, he returned to the Unsung Voices program as a program coordinator guiding filmmakers to create their films from ideation to screening.
PRESS
Cinemorata: majboor-e-mamool
Properganda: Child-parent relationship is a mixed bag of burnout & love which is why ‘Majboor-e-Mamool’ felt so real
Broadway World: IFFSA Announces Five South Asian Canadian Film Projects Win The $75000 Talent Fund 2021-22
Now Toronto: Reel Asian's Unsung Voices program introduces young Asian-Canadians to filmmaking
Project 40: Creator to Creator: Haaris Qadri
Cinema Axis: Toronto Youth Shorts 2017 Sneak Peek
Contact
haarisqadri@icloud.com
1 (647) 964-5744