Desi Standard Time Travel | Kashif Pasta

2023 Mosquers FIlm Festival Official Selection

Winner for People’s Choice

Director | Kashif Pasta

Writers | Aysha Aijaz, Nessa Aref, Kashif Pasta & Shyam Valera

Featuring | Adolyn Dar, Ali Kazmi, Anika Zulfikar

Desi Standard Time Travel is a Pakistani-Canadian sci-fi drama short with heart. It’s about fatherhood, second chances, and seeing your parents as real people for the first time in your life.

New father Imran has regrets about the last conversation he ever had with his father. So when he gets the opportunity to go back in time and end things on a better note, Imran jumps at the chance to get the parenting advice he sorely misses now that he has his own son, too.

But this is Pakistani time travel, and we’re never on time. Imran is sent back too far - all the way back to 1993, where he meets his parents in their early twenties, exactly when they’re pregnant with him as new immigrants in a foreign land.

Imran sees his parents as real people for the first time. They share their fears and excitement about becoming new parents, making a new life in Canada, and, when Imran helps the stubborn young version of his father assemble a crib, finally having the moment they should have had from the beginning.