The inaugural Qissa Festival took place on March 29, 2026, at Small World Music Centre in Toronto. Bringing together literature, performance, music, film, and conversation, the festival featured a full day of programming developed through a series of collaborative workshops with eight newcomer and refugee writers. The festival explored themes of migration, memory, identity, labour, family, language, and belonging through original artistic works, panel discussions, performances, screenings, and audience engagement activities.
Participating Writers
Mostafa Al-A’sar is an award-winning Egyptian journalist, researcher and human rights defender. Al-A’sar endured four years in detention in Egypt as a prisoner of conscience for his journalism before fleeing to Lebanon and later relocating to Toronto, Canada. He is a 2025 Journalists for Human Rights contributing writer for The Walrus and was a 2024/2025 Canadian Journalists for Free Expression/Massey College journalism fellow at the University of Toronto. He founded REDWORD for Human Right and Freedom of Expression, a Canadian nonprofit dedicated to defending free expression and countering misinformation, fake news and hate speech.
Salman Haider is a poet, playwright, and satirist in exile, with performances and publications in Pakistan, the U.S., and Canada. Detained and tortured for his outspoken work, he continues to use satire and poetry as acts of resistance and survival. He holds a PhD in Psychology.
Maya El Helou holds a PhD in Anthropology and Sexual Diversity Studies. Their research reflects on what it means to conduct scholarship that resists extraction while remaining entangled in academic structures that demand it. El Helou’s work focuses on violence and necropolitics in the Middle East, with particular attention to urban Beirut. They work with graphic ethnography as a method, combining visual storytelling with ethnographic theory to explore practices of resistance and survival. Maya is also a published comic artist whose work critically engages settler colonialism, patriarchy, and intersecting systems of oppression through a queer feminist lens. They are also a lecturer in anthropology, gender, and sexuality studies.
Sana’a Jaber is a Lebanese writer, mother, filmmaker, and refugee based in Toronto. She weaves stories of exile, resilience, motherhood, and belonging, drawing from a life lived across cultures and borders. Her short story won the prestigious Carol Shields Prize in Canada, and her work spans fiction, memoir, and storytelling for social change. Before settling in Toronto, Sana’a spent over two decades working in film and television as a writer, art director, and sound recordist. Through her writing, she gives voice to those often unheard—refugees, women, dreamers building new homes in unfamiliar lands. Sana’a is currently completing her first book.
Tala Motazedi is an Iranian filmmaker, screenwriter, and playwright based in Canada. After years of professional work in Iran, she was forced to leave the country due to censorship and political pressure and now continues her artistic practice in exile. Her work centers on women’s experiences, queer identity, the body, repression, and life under authoritarian systems. She often blends social realism with symbolic or supernatural elements to explore how power, silence, and fear shape both private and collective lives. In recent years, her storytelling has increasingly focused on migration, exile, and the reconstruction of identity after long periods of enforced invisibility. Tala Motazedi is a recipient of the PEN Canada–Humber College Writers in Exile Scholarship. Her work has been presented at international festivals and platforms. She is currently based in Toronto, where she is developing film and documentary projects that examine freedom, memory, resistance, and the enduring impact of displacement on the body and imagination.
Ahmer Naqvi is a writer whose work explores popular culture as a lens for understanding society, power, and everyday life. His writings have primarily focused on food, cricket and music, and he’s been published in Fifty Two, Caravan, Dawn, ESPNCricinfo amongst others. He has also worked as the digital head of the PSL cricket league, COO of Pakistani music platform Patari, and founded Khanay Mei Kya Hai, food tours of Karachi which showcase indigenous cuisines.
Blessing O. Nwodo is a Toronto-based, multidisciplinary storyteller. Her work spans a diverse range of mediums, including opera, immersive art exhibitions, film, sonic storytelling, and published fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, she also holds an MFA from the University of Guelph, and has served as Editor of Held Magazine. An alumna of the University of Nigeria, she was honored as Best Female Writer in 2017. Her stories have won the 2016 Nigerian Travel Story, been shortlisted for the 2021 Toyin Fálọlá Prize, the 2021 African Writers Awards, the 2018 Igby Prize for Nonfiction, and the 2019 Lost Balloon Pushcart Prize. When she’s not relishing fashion, she can often be found pulverizing the patriarchy. She is working on a collection of speculative fiction, and a novel.
Harleen Singh is a writer and researcher focusing on the social and literary history of colonial Punjab and the North West Frontier Province (now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan). Born and raised in Delhi, Harleen’s interest in history was sparked by the Partition experiences of his grandparents, whose stories he heard growing up. These personal histories sparked his interest in oral history as a means of preserving these narratives. In 2014, Harleen began documenting the stories of Partition survivors, which led to the creation of The Lost Heer Project in 2018, dedicated to uncovering the largely forgotten narratives of women in colonial Punjab. Based in Toronto, Harleen is currently researching the historical relationship between the twin cities of Lahore and Amritsar.
Curating the Day
The 2026 Qissa Festival was designed as a day-long journey rather than a series of standalone events. Developed in collaboration with eight newcomer and refugee writers, the program moved through a series of interconnected themes that explored different dimensions of migration, identity, memory, and belonging.
The day opened with reflections on adaptation and the subtle ways immigrants learn to navigate unfamiliar social worlds. From there, the festival moved into questions of disappearance, examining the losses, absences, and transformations that often accompany migration. These conversations were followed by explorations of reappearance—of memory, family, language, and the possibility of reconnection across distance and time. The day concluded by widening the lens, situating individual experiences within larger histories of empire, movement, labour, and power that continue to shape migration today.
Together, the performances, readings, films, discussions, exhibition, and musical programming invited audiences to move between the personal and the political, tracing how individual lives are shaped by larger social and historical forces.
Schedule
The Art of Small Talk: “What Do You Do?”
The session opened with a performance based on the work of Maya El Helou, a comic artist and anthropologist, drawn from her literary work on Small Talk. Through a presentation and a live reading, this performance dissected the rituals of small talk, including the comic challenge of responding to What do you do? when the answer is: I study death.
The presentation flowed into a theatrical performance based on Blessing O. Nwodo’s Time to Earn a Living. Through her work, Blessing interrogates the absurdity of the phrase “earning a living,” questioning a system that demands proof of worth for the very act of being alive, and insisting instead on our inherent right not just to survive, but to live well. The performances was be followed by a panel discussion.
Featuring
Maya El Helou: Comic Artist, Anthropologist
Blessing O. Nwodo: Multidisciplinary Storyteller, Feminist Activist
Timaj Garad (Moderator): multi-disciplinary storyteller, Arts Educator, and Community Organizer
Panel Sponsor: The Carol Shields Prize Foundation
Mirror, Mirror: Disappearance and the Migrant Body
This multidisciplinary performance by Tala Motazedi unfolded through narration, contemporary dance, sound, and projected archival imagery. Centered around a mirror on stage, the piece began with a century-old family story and moved to the present, tracing the disappearance of a father, and ultimately, the disappearance of the self through migration. The performance was followed by a dramatic reading of writer Mostafa Al-A’sar’s piece, Never Forget What You Are that explored migration as a series of “smaller deaths.” Together, Mostafa and Tala examined disappearance as a condition of migration, followed by a panel conversation with the writers.
Featuring
Tala Motazedi: Screenwriter, Playwright, Novelist
Mostafa Al-A’sar: Journalist, Human Rights Defender, Author
Andrea Gunraj (Moderator) is an essayist, fiction writer, public speaker, and thought-leader
Reappearance: Letters Across Distance and Time
This session opened with a reading by Sana’a Jaber from A Letter to Baba, an intimate reflection on time, distance, and the small details that measure separation. Accompanied by live music, the piece reflected on the quiet transformations that unfold across years of separation. It was followed by a performance by Salman Haider, whose poem After Eight Years traced the fragile encounter of reunion. Through poetry and music, the piece reflected on reconnection after years of separation. The session concluded with a panel conversation.
Featuring
Sana’a Jaber: Filmmaker, Writer
Salman Haider: Poet, Playwright, Satirist
Anam Zakaria (Moderator) is a writer, oral historian, and the Co-Founder and Strategic Director of Qissa
Empire, Movement, and Food
This session opened with An Evening in the Government House, a two-character drama set in 1906 and written by author, Harleen Singh. Over the course of a winter evening, Mary Minto, the Vicereine of India, and her Sikh ayah, Harnam Kaur, speak of children, memory, and distant lands — including Canada. Through their conversation, the play contrasts two very different experiences of imperial movement. The performance was followed by a panel discussion on the legacies of empire and migration, and concludes with a participatory presentation by Ahmer Naqvi. Through a shared tasting experience, he reflected on assimilation, commodification, and the lingering presence of colonial histories in everyday life.
Featuring
Harleen Singh: Writer, Researcher, Archivist
Ahmer Naqvi: Writer, Broadcaster
Aparita Bhandari (Moderator): Arts and Life Reporter
Keynote: Randell Adjei
Randell Adjei is an Author, Inspirational Speaker, Arts Educator and Community Leader who uses the spoken word to empower and transform through Edutainment. He is the founder of one of Toronto’s largest and longest running youth led initiatives; Reaching Intelligent Souls Everywhere (R.I.S.E Edutainment).
He is Ontario’s first Poet Laureate (2021).
Remembering & Forgetting
Screening by Tala Motazedi and Sana’a Jaber. Through image, voice, and sound, the films reflected on memory, displacement, and the shifting relationship to language and self that migration can produce. The screenings were followed by a conversation with the artists and an audience Q&A.
Featuring:
Nariman Ansari (Moderator): Photographer, filmmaker, and storyteller
Musical Evening
The festival concluded with a live musical performance featuring Gandhaar Amin and Dhaivat Jani. Blending classical training with contemporary interpretation, their work moves across traditions, languages, and diasporic soundscapes. Rooted in migration, memory, and musical lineage, the evening offers a celebratory and reflective close to the day’s conversations.
About the Performers:
Gandhaar Amin is a Bansuri Player trained in the Hindustani classical tradition whose work bridges classical form and contemporary expression. His performances draw on rich musical lineages while engaging new audiences across cultural contexts.
Dhaivat Jani is a drummer, tabla player and composer whose practice spans classical performance and collaborative projects across genres. His work brings rhythmic depth and improvisational energy to stages in Canada and beyond.
Live Music During Performances
Live music throughout the festival’s performances was provided by Mehdi Rostami, whose setar accompaniment added an atmospheric layer to several artistic presentations across the day.
About the Performer:
Mehdi Rostami is an Iranian musician, composer, and Setar player based in Toronto. His work explores the spirit of Persian improvisation and the meeting point between Iranian classical music and contemporary world sounds. Through performance and collaboration, he brings the intimate voice of the Setar to diverse audiences.
Host
Val Duarte hosted the festival, guiding audiences through the day’s program while weaving in reflections from her own journey as a newcomer.
About Val:
Val Duarte is an interdisciplinary artist and researcher working in socially engaged and participatory art. Her practice centers on designing tools, gatherings, and collaborative spaces where artists can explore authorship, creative labour, and the conditions that shape their ability to sustain a practice. She is the lead author of Creating with Nature, a creative card deck that invites people to reconnect with the natural world as a source of inspiration and reflection. Val co-led the project Reframing Creativity with David Gauntlett at Toronto Metropolitan University, exploring how independent artists and creators navigated identity, disruption, and creative practice during the COVID-19 crisis. She also contributed to the creation of the KUNE Music Hub study on the experiences of immigrant musicians in Toronto and co-led the second cohort of Project CREA, a mentorship program for Latin American youth artists through Creato. She currently works with the Future Skills Centre, exploring the future of work and asking how we can build careers and ways of working that feel human, creative, and sustainable in a rapidly changing world—her medium, ultimately, is the space between people.
Mahnoor Khan performed the character of Ogechukwu in Blessing O. Nwodo’s play, Time to Earn a Living. This short performance was featured in the session, The Art of Small Talk: “What Do You Do?”
About Mahnoor:
Mahnoor Khan is a Pakistani-Canadian actor and producer whose work moves fluidly between the theatre stage and the silver screen. She is also the co-founder of Virasat TO, a Toronto-based artist collective grounded in South Asian artistic practices and committed to creating space for connection, collaboration, and the celebration of heritage through art. Across her creative practice, Mahnoor is driven by a strong commitment to representation, artistic integrity, and stories that honor the richness, nuance, and complexity of our lived experiences.
Zahshanné Malik performed a contemporary dance to accompany Tala Motazedi’s multidisciplinary presentation titled Mirror, Mirror, featured in the session, Mirror, Mirror: Disappearance and the Migrant Body.
She also played the character of Harnam Kaur in Harleen Singh’s play, An Evening at the Viceregal Lodge, in the session, Empire, Movement, and Food.
About Zahshanné:
Zahshanné Malik is a performer and theatre-maker whose work lives at the intersection of movement and storytelling. Trained in Kathak, with extensive international performance experience, she is excited to perform for Canadian audiences and collaborate with artists from around the world. Most recently, she appeared as Sita in New by Pamela Sinha and will also be performing in this year’s Toronto Fringe Festival. She is honoured to be part of Qissa’s Newcomer & Refugee Festival, sharing stories through both theatre and dance.
Amanda Myrden played the character of Lady Minto in Harleen Singh’s play, An Evening at the Viceregal Lodge, in the session, Empire, Movement, and Food.
About Amanda:
Amanda Myrden is a Canadian performer with a passion for storytelling and the performing arts. She is a graduate of the Theatre Arts and Performance program at Centennial College, where she trained under industry professionals and developed her skills in acting, dance, and vocal performance. With a background in multiple dance styles and vocal techniques, Amanda has also received awards in regional musical theatre competitions. She brings versatility, dedication, and heart to every role and is excited to be part of this production.
Matt Scerri performed the piece Never Forget What You Are, by Mostafa Al-A’sar, featured in the panel, Mirror, Mirror: Disappearance and the Migrant Body.
About Matt
Actor from Toronto, ON. Graduate of The Second City, William Esper Studio, and HB Studio in NYC – Matt has performed across Toronto with Alumnae Theatre, Crows Theatre, and Helen Gardiner P. Playhouse, as well as multiple short films that have premiered in festivals across Toronto, Vancouver, Italy, and France. Matt finished a run for the 2025 Toronto Fringe Festival, where his performance in Silence, garnered reviews from multiple platforms, most notably, Toronto Star – Matt is enlightened to be representing the fierce voices of the Qissa Festival, and he is also returning to the Helen G. Phelen Playhouse for a Suzan Lori-Parks production titled 365 Days/365 Plays in April 2026 – Matt would like to thank his many heroes in performance, who inspires his work to continue pursuing the truth.
