Umrao Jaan
Film screening
Wednesday, May 13, 2026
7:30–10 pm
$20 Regular • $18 Friends • $15 Students and Seniors
Tickets to this program include Museum admission.
The Aga Khan Museum is proud to celebrate 45 years of Umrao Jaan with a special 4K restored screening.
Experience Muzaffar Ali’s landmark 1981 film, Umrao Jaan, newly restored and returning to the big screen with renewed visual depth and clarity. Starring Rekha in her National Film Award winning performance, with Khayyam’s unforgettable music, and Shahryar’s poetry, Umrao Jaan remains an enduring meditation on beauty, longing, displacement, and artistic selfhood. This restored screening invites longtime admirers and new audiences alike to experience one of Indian cinema’s most celebrated classics in a renewed presentation.
Umrao Jaan
The film follows Amiran, a young girl abducted from Faizabad and brought to Lucknow, where she is renamed Umrao Jaan and trained in poetry, music, dance, and the refined arts of the kotha.
Set in 19th century Awadh, in the years leading up to and surrounding the upheavals of 1857, Umrao Jaan offers a richly textured glimpse into Muslim social and cultural life in North India. Through its world of poetry, ghazal, dance, etiquette, and patronage, the film evokes the artistic sophistication of Lucknow’s courtly culture while also reflecting the fragility of that world during a period of political and social transformation.
Presented in partnership with the Canada Literature Festival, the Classic Legends International Film Festival, and the Indo-Canada Arts Council
Government Partners
