Muslim film festival invites Edmontonians to 'feel inspired'

The red carpet rolled out in downtown Edmonton for the return of the Mosquers. 

The annual short film festival kicked off Friday, bringing Muslim film, spoken word, comedy and even calligraphy to the Winspear Centre.

"It's generally a celebration of Muslim creatives and art," said Yasir Iqbal, the festival's outreach director.

The Mosquers (a combination of Muslim and Oscars) were started in 2007 by a group of University of Alberta students aiming to combat misconceptions about Muslims.

"Filmmakers use our festival to discuss and share their films and narratives that they feel like might be underrepresented in traditional media or social media," Iqbal said.

More than 1,000 films from around the world were submitted for the 2023 event. Of those, eight were selected as finalists to be screened Saturday before the award ceremony.

The event welcomes everyone, Muslim or not, and featured a combination of universal and Muslim-specific themes across genres.

"Our filmmakers really decide what you leave with," Iqbal said. "A lot of times the films are touching on subjects that are relevant to what's happening in the world, how Muslims are feeling.

"But they also are sometimes the director's artistic vision of a completely separate story that they came up with.

"So audiences sometimes feel inspired, they laugh, they learn, and that's kind of the purpose of the Mosquers."

It's the 14th year the event has been hosted in Edmonton but the first it will span an entire weekend.

"For the first time, we'll be having a third day, which will be a screening of the feature film Mustache by [Muslim] director Imran J. Khan," Iqbal said.

Sunday will also feature a pitch competition.

More information on the Mosquers can be found here.