U of A founded festival celebrates Muslim creators

The Mosquers, an annual Muslim film festival just wrapped up its 17th year. From September 18 to 21, the festival had films screening across multiple venues and a range of industry events for attendees to chat and meet. 

This year they had a networking event, and panels about documentary making, building global audiences, and journalism. Yasir Iqbal, outreach director for the festival, said “it’s a four-day festival that is designed to bring people together and celebrate Muslim creatives. It includes short films [and] important discussions on relevant topics.” 

On having a space to highlight Muslim creatives, Iqbal said one of the first things they do is have “an event where people can come watch [Muslim creators’] work. If you’re in an area with a community and people of all backgrounds across Edmonton come to watch their work, that uplifts you,” Iqbal said. 

The Incubator program helps foster talent

The festival also looks to get creatives in touch and foster new projects. “People have mentioned that they’ve met at The Mosquers and later worked on a project together. We also have the Incubator program. [The Incubator program] is where we work with people who are more experienced and help them guide new and emerging filmmakers to help make their first short film so they can get their feet wet,” Iqbal said. 

The Incubator program works as a competition. “The Incubator process took about 10 people, four of them made it to the final cut. Basically, they made a full film, and then we showed those four films on [September 18], and of those four films, one of them is being picked to be shown [on September 20],” he explained.

The Incubator program’s winning film, The Last Cigarette, was the only Canadian film screened at the festival. Iqbal said that in previous years they have received submissions from more Canadian filmmakers, but didn’t this year. 

“The connection to the campus community is really important to our organization,” Iqbal says

Iqbal said that the festival will help create more content in Canada. “There’s actually a lot of talent in Canada. And, there’s a lot of resources available. Whether it’s like tax credits or different organizations that are trying to uplift creatives. If we put out final products, then it raises the profile, and that may help recruit more funding and increase the number of stories that are being told,” Iqbal said. 

On the festival being held in Edmonton, Iqbal said “Edmonton has a very strong arts scene that is underappreciated. Edmonton has a strong Muslim community, and combining those two things is essentially The Mosquers. A couple other advantages we didn’t think about when we started this, we were trying to bring more creatives into Edmonton and there’s a lot of support available from the city or different organizations.” 

The Mosquers also started at the University of Alberta. “We started off at the U of A. A lot of us, including myself, joined the organization while we were still on campus. And, I’m an alumni and most of the board members are alumni. There’s a strong connection to campus. And so we always try to work with student groups on campus when possible. This year, we had an event with the Palestine Cultural Club. We worked with them to promote a festival on campus. So, the connection to the campus community is really important to our organization,” Iqbal explained.