Queen Tut

Queen Tut is a 2023 Canadian coming-of-age drama film, directed by Reem Morsi.^[1]

The film centres on Nabil (Ryan Ali), a closeted Coptic gay teenager from Egypt who silently grieves the recent death of his mother, a prolific seamstress and gown maker. Relocating to Toronto to live with his estranged father Iskander (Dani Jazzar), a financially successful but emotionally rigid property developer, Nabil finds a new queer sense of belonging and alternative home when he meets Malibu (Alexandra Billings), a longtime transgender bar owner and drag performer in the Church and Wellesley gay village whose historic queer nightclub faces the imminent threat of demolition and displacement by Iskander's development firm. Grappling with the tensions between his blood family and emerging chosen family, Nabil joins forces with Malibu's grassroots campaign to save the life of her bar and in the process, he not only cultivates his unique drag queen persona, but integrates the loss of his mother by embodying her memory and resurrecting her presence through his art.^[2]

The cast also includes Kiriana Stanton, Selena Vyle and Thom Allison, as well as Ben Sanders, Darrin Baker, Matt Willis, Danielle Bourgon, Cru Levey Cru Levey, Kendall Savage, Mostafa Shaker, Kaz Morgan, Khalid Karim, Minh Ly, Asil Moussa and Darren Stewart-Jones in supporting roles.