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Zarqa Nawaz | |
|---|---|
 Zarqa Nawaz is inducted into the Brampton Arts Walk of Fame | |
| Born | 1967 (age 55–56) |
| Occupation(s) | Journalist, broadcaster, filmmaker, writer, director, producer |
| Spouse | Married 1993–Present |
| Children | 4 |
| Parent(s) | Ali and Parveen Nawaz |
Zarqa Nawaz (born 1967 in Liverpool, England) is a Canadian creator and producer for film and television, a published author, public speaker, journalist, and former broadcaster.
Zarqa Nawaz was raised in the Toronto area and attended Chinguacousy Secondary School. [1] Initially, Nawaz planned to go to medical school and completed a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Toronto. She completed a second degree in journalism at Ryerson Polytechnical Institute in 1992. She worked with CBC Radio, CBC Newsworld, CBC Television's The National , and CTV's Canada AM , and was an associate producer of several CBC Radio programs including Morningside . Her 1992 radio documentary The Changing Rituals of Death won multiple awards at the Ontario Telefest Awards. Stating that she became "bored of journalism," she took a summer film workshop at the Ontario College of Art & Design and began working as a filmmaker, using comedy to explore the relationships between Muslims and their neighbours in contemporary North America. She has described the goal of her production company, FUNdamentalist Films, as "putting the 'fun' back into fundamentalism."
In a 2003 interview with Prairie Dog Magazine, Nawaz said her screenplay Real Terrorists Don't Bellydance was "inspired by movies like True Lies and Executive Decision." She describes it as a "new genre of film," a cross between a terrorist flick and a comedy: "I call it a 'terrordy.'" [2] Her use of humour in the television series Little Mosque on the Prairie attracted media attention ranging from CNN and The Jerusalem Post to The Colbert Report even before it aired, prompting the CBC to broadcast it months ahead of its original schedule.
In 2007, Nawaz created the internationally renowned CBC comedy series, Little Mosque on the Prairie , the world's first sitcom about a Muslim community living in the west. Little Mosque on the Prairie premiered to the highest ratings CBC ever had. [3] The show went on to win a Gemini, [4] and was nominated for Best Television Series – Comedy at the 2007 Directors Guild of Canada Awards. Internationally, Little Mosque won awards for Best International Television Series and Best Screenplay at the 2007 Roma Fiction Fest. In 2012, it made its American debut on Hulu, and is currently streaming on Amazon Prime. The Los Angeles Times said: "the genius of 'Mosque' is that the characters resonate with viewers all over the world." [5] Nawaz's CBC show Little Mosque on the Prairie was inspired by her documentary Me and the Mosque . She felt that mosques would be run differently if imams were recruited from North America instead of being brought from overseas where cultural differences, especially when it came to women, affected how the imams behaved with their congregation.
After the success of Little Mosque on the Prairie, Nawaz successfully sold comedy pilots to ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox Studios.
Nawaz's memoir Laughing All the Way to the Mosque, [6] published in 2014, was a shortlisted nominee for the 2015 Stephen Leacock Award. [7] The book was also nominated for the Kobo Emerging Writer's Award, [8] Saskatchewan Book Award of the Year, [9] and Chatelaine magazine's Book Club Pick. [10] "With a light touch and great humour," wrote reviewer Joanne Latimer in Maclean's magazine, "she pokes fun at Muslims and her Punjabi-Canadian clan. The anecdotes create a wry portrait of an immigrant daughter struggling against tradition, sexism and the shalwar kameez."
Nawaz was also as an advice columnist for the Globe & Mail [11] from February 2012 to August 2012. In 2018, she was the host of The Morning Edition, Saskatchewan's CBC Radio's morning show, [12] and in 2019 she was the anchor of CBC Saskatchewan's six o'clock news. [13]
Nawaz received a Doctor of Divinity from the University of Saskatchewan for her interfaith work in the community. In recognition for her contribution to the arts, she was inducted into Brampton Arts Walk of Fame in 2019. [14]
Nawaz started doing stand-up in 2020 and co-created the first Women and Non-Binary Open Mic [15] in Regina where she headlined on opening night at The Cure. Prior to the COVID outbreak in March 2020, Nawaz did weekly open mics at The Cure, and monthly open mics at The Exchange, The Fat Badger, the Creative City Centre and The Social LOL in Regina, Saskatchewan.
In 2021, CBC Television announced the production of Zarqa , a web series in which Nawaz stars as a divorced Muslim woman reentering the dating scene. [16] The series premiered on CBC Gem in May 2022. [17] Nawaz's novel Jameela Green Ruins Everything was also published in 2022, [18] and was a shortlisted Leacock Award finalist in 2023. [19]
Zarqa Nawaz is the mother of four children and lives in Regina, Saskatchewan.
Corner Gas is a Canadian television sitcom created by Brent Butt. The series ran for six seasons from 2004 to 2009. Re-runs still air on CTV, CTV2, CTV Comedy Channel, Much, MTV, E! and are streaming on Crave and Amazon Prime. The series was followed by a feature film titled Corner Gas: The Movie, with the entire cast reprising their roles. The film was released for a limited theatrical run in December 2014.
Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town is a sequence of stories by Stephen Leacock, first published in 1912. It is generally considered to be one of the most enduring classics of Canadian humorous literature. The fictional setting for these stories is Mariposa, a small town on the shore of Lake Wissanotti. Although drawn from his experiences in Orillia, Ontario, Leacock notes: "Mariposa is not a real town. On the contrary, it is about seventy or eighty of them. You may find them all the way from Lake Superior to the sea, with the same square streets and the same maple trees and the same churches and hotels."
Brent Leroy Butt is a Canadian actor, comedian, and screenwriter. He is best known for his role as Brent Leroy on the CTV sitcom Corner Gas, which he created. He also created the television series Hiccups and wrote the 2013 film No Clue.
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Andrea Menard is a Canadian actress, playwright, and jazz singer.
Dianne Warren is a Canadian novelist, dramatist and short story writer.
Amy Matysio is a Canadian theatre, television and film actress.
Little Mosque on the Prairie is a Canadian television sitcom created by Zarqa Nawaz and produced by WestWind Pictures, originally broadcast from 2007 to 2012 on CBC. Filmed in Toronto, Ontario, and Indian Head, Saskatchewan, the series was showcased at the Dawn Breakers International Film Festival. After the series finale aired in April 2012, Hulu announced it would begin offering the series under the name Little Mosque that summer. The series made its U.S. premiere on Pivot in August 2013.
Arlene Duncan is a Canadian actress and singer from Oakville, Ontario. Her father is African Canadian, with ancestors from Nova Scotia. Duncan has appeared in more than 80 film and television roles, in addition to many theatrical productions. She is best known for her television role as Fatima, a diner owner in the CBC situation comedy Little Mosque on the Prairie.
Carol Morin is a media personality, writer and artist from Saskatchewan.
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Me and the Mosque is a 2005 Canadian documentary film by Zarqa Nawaz about the efforts of Muslim women in North America to pray in mosques, and the use of partitions to conceal women from male worshippers.
Ashley Comeau is a Queer Canadian actress, writer, and television producer. She is best known as an alumna of the Second City Toronto and for her role as Ms. Badger on Degrassi: Next Class.
Lara Rae, formerly known as Al Rae, is a Canadian comedian, best known as the longtime artistic director of the Winnipeg Comedy Festival and as a performer on the CBC Radio One comedy series The Debaters.
Haris Khan is a Canadian comedian. Over the years, he has become known for his ethnically diverse humour, and for his charitable works.
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Zarqa is a Canadian comedy web series, which premiered in 2022 on CBC Gem. The series stars Zarqa Nawaz as Zarqa, a divorced Muslim woman whose ex-husband is remarrying to a younger white yoga instructor; she responds by inventing a fake white boyfriend of her own and sets out to find an appropriate man to portray him as her date at the wedding, but ends up being drawn into a love triangle when Brian, the man she finds on a dating app, wants to establish a serious relationship rather than just being revenge arm candy, while at the same time Zarqa's former boyfriend Yusuf returns with an interest in rekindling their relationship.
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