Life as a young adult is naturally challenging. But being a person of color with foriegn traditions and heritage that has to coincide with the culture of local peers can add insurmountable pressure to one’s life. This is what Sheila is learning in Quickening, a moody coming-of-age drama that finds this young woman struggling to navigate the challenges that come with this chapter of her life. The story of Sheila is compelling, but it’s the style and elegance infused into many of the technical aspects of this film by writer and director Haya Waseem that makes this production abundantly praiseworthy.

Sheila, played by Arooj Azeem, is in her first year of university studying interpretive dance. She maintains a functional relationship with her parents. She has friends. And at this point in her life, she has fallen in love for the first time with a boy in her dance class. It might sound like an ideal moment in her life, but each of these aspects come with varying levels of fragility. Arguments between her parents are getting worse, and Sheila longs for more freedom from them. Her gossipy friends can seem superficial and uninvested in Sheila’s life. The boyfriend she loved breaks up with her shortly after she gave him her virginity, and she becomes pregnant from the encounter. Faced with shame and judgement from her peers and her traditional conservative family, Sheila has to figure out how to handle the escalating pressure and who she can trust with helping bear the load.

Sheila is reserved, although shy might not be the right description. Much of her presence in the film comes with a bystanding nature in relation to social interactions. But when she needs to, Sheila can speak up and speak her mind, and when she does, the effect is often powerful. To this end, Azeem offers a strong feature debut performance as she seamlessly juggles affection, disappointment, anger, and a charm that transcends every state the emotional roller coaster her character is on. Not to mention the added benefit of Bushra Azeem and Ashir Azeem - Arooj’s real life parents - playing her parents in the film, adding a a remarkable layer of authenticity to the on-screen chemistry.

Quickening is also full of tension and atmosphere. The cinematography is heavily saturated in dark tones and shadows, casting an artsy and alluring cinematic style over each scene - especially in transitions where the camera floats untethered from a subject or focal point, yet still beautifully capturing the mood and exquisite details of the scene. Then, the film’s striking score elevates the production even further, bearing a surprisingly dramatic and sometimes even whimsical nature. Like in Waseem’s short films Sororsis and The Ballad, music composer Spencer Creaghan offers Quickening an emotionally enchanting quality that only serves to bolster the already stirring narrative Waseem has crafted, ultimately delivering one of the best scores we’ll experience in film this year.

It all comes together to shape a distinct and exceptional film watching experience. Quickening is Waseem’s debut narrative feature, but the thread that runs through many of her filmmaking projects is a keen ability to capture perspective - be it in Shahzad with her “exploration of change for a child and, through his perspective, the change in a parent,” as she states in an interview with Seventh Row, or in Sorosis with her harmonization of visions of sisterhood through visual poetry. Waseem’s work is a wonder to behold, and with Quickening demonstrating marvelous filmmaking prowess, Waseem herself proves to be a talent to keep your eye on.

Production Company
Quickening Film Inc.

Production Designer
Dialla Kawar

Screenplay
Haya Waseem

Sound
Jonah Blaser

Publicist
Route 504 PR

Original Score
Spencer Creaghan

Director
Haya Waseem

Cast
Arooj Azeem, Bushra Azeem, Ashir Azeem

Cinematography
Christopher Lew

Editing
Brendan Mills

Executive Producers
Philipp Ramhofer, Jakob Preischl, Donovan Boden, Isil Gilderdale, Emily Harris, Harland Weiss

Producer
Yona Strauss

TIFF 2021 REVIEW | "Quickening" Brims With Remarkable New And Up-And-Coming Talent