MAYA & SAMAR
Starring Nicolette Pearse as Maya and Amanda Babaei Vieira as Samar
Cast Brenna Coates, Antonis Giannakos, Aris Athanasopoulos, Agni Scott
Directed by Anita Doron
Runtime 95 minutes
Produced by Filmiki Athens and Serendipity Point Films Toronto
Set in contemporary Athens, Maya & Samar follows two women from conflicting cultures whose brief but intense affair endangers one of them while pushing the other into sudden online fame.
The film premiered at the Thessaloniki International Film Festival on November 4, 2025, and was released in Canadian cinemas on March 20, 2026.
Now available to watch from home via VVS Films Canada
PRESS
"Vieira is nothing short of captivating. She brings both vulnerability and defiance to Samar, creating a character who feels lived-in and real rather than symbolic. Her performance is layered—equal parts confidence and fragility—and it’s impossible to look away when she’s on screen.
In a crowded cinematic landscape, Maya & Samar earns its place as one of the year’s most rewarding and thought-provoking experiences."
- Keith Whittier, Ottawa Life
"Fantastic performances in this destabilizing film, which will have you looking-inward and thinking after it ends."
- Will Wong, Toronto Entertainment Blog
"Maya probes Samar for her story, a compelling narrative about a queer woman who escaped the Taliban and fled to the West, escaping persecution but also shaming her family in the process. These scenes are mildly gut-wrenching, told over a hookah and with pensive, longing stares. The film is at its best in these moments, with Vieira embodying the grateful but also exhausted body language of a woman having to explain the everyday realities of her existence to someone who will never quite understand."
- Matthew Simpson, Exclaim
"Maya and Samar’s relationship becomes embedded with notions of empowerment and resistance to social pressures. [...] But part of that form of resistance also attempts to upend a sense of ‘Western superiority’."
- Steve Norton, Screenfish
"Maya & Samar is a woman-driven dramatic romance with a surprising, political twist. It’s a passionate, feminist story set within the precarious world of undocumented workers."
- Daniel Garber, Cultural Mining
