Shayda

Directed by Noora Niasari, Shayda narrates the experience of an Iranian immigrant (played well by Zar Amir Ebrahimi) in danger of losing her daughter to a possessive and violent husband (Osamah Sami). Supported by friends in a women's shelter run by the sympathetic Joyce (Leah Purcell), Shayda must carve out a new life for herself and her daughter Mona (Selina) free of the constraints of past. The story takes place over the celebration of the Iranian New Year (Nowruz).

The film was submitted to the Academy as Australia's entry for best International Film. It wasn't selected but it was nominated for nine AACTA awards and won for Best Casting. It's an impressive debut feature film from Niasari who won the Best Direction award from the Australian Directors Guild in 2023. Films like this have an important role to play in helping us understand the experience of migrants as well as breaking down prejudice. Broken relationships and their outcomes are common human experiences knowing no national, racial, political or religious boundaries.

Finally, an authentic representation of what life can be like for people of colour in Australia. The nuanced and complex characters make you want to go with them on their journey even when the film is over. Noora Niasari has smashed it out of the park with her debut and I can't wait to see more from this director!! The camera team has done a fantastic job to capture the sometimes dark but muted beauty of Melbourne The lead actors are phenomenal and the subtle twists and turns in the move always keep you glued to the screen. Australian film making at its finest. It would be a tragedy to miss this film in the theatres.

Best performance by Selina Zahednia child actor. Premiered at Sundance, Shayda centers on an Iranian woman trying to preserve normalcy during Nowruz for her 6 year old daughter in Australia, while trying to escape the manipulations of her separated, abusive husband. Shayda immediately feels personal, and it is director/writer Noora Niasari telling the story of her own mother. While the movie centers on the mother, the daughter's own eyes and experience are brought to life. A brief sequence filmed from the child's perspective is particularly chilling. While this story is intimate and personal as a moment, it also feels timely as Iranian women today courageously protest and risk their lives for rights .

Noora Niasari's Shayda is a measured, quietly powerful debut that marks her as one of the most promising new filmmakers on the Australian scene. Based on her own childhood experiences, the film tells the story of an Iranian mother and daughter seeking safety and stability in a women's shelter in 1990s Australia. It's a deeply personal story, but one that speaks to wider issues of displacement, domestic violence, and female resilience.

At the centre of the film is Zar Amir Ebrahimi, who gives a performance of remarkable control and emotional precision. As Shayda, she radiates both vulnerability and strength. You can feel the weight of her decisions without the film ever having to overstate them. It's the kind of performance that's all the more effective for what it holds back.

Niasari directs with restraint, prioritising character over exposition and intimacy over spectacle. There's a clear confidence in how she paces the story: scenes breathe, silence is used intentionally, and emotional tension builds slowly but purposefully. She trusts the audience to stay with her-and it pays off.

The cinematography by Sherwin Akbarzadeh complements this tone perfectly. The boxed-in aspect ratio draws us closer to Shayda's inner world, while close-ups linger just long enough to make us sit with her emotions. It's the kind of subtle visual storytelling that doesn't try to impress but ends up doing just that.

One of the film's most gut-punching scenes comes in the form of a phone call-Shayda's own mother, from afar, urging her to give her abusive husband another chance. It's handled without melodrama, but the implication is brutal. It speaks to a cycle that many women are caught in, culturally and generationally. That's where the film's strength lies: in capturing specific moments that feel tragically familiar and widely resonant.

If anything, the film's final act drags slightly, but it's a minor issue in what is otherwise a tightly constructed, emotionally rich experience.

Shayda doesn't aim for fireworks. It's not trying to be a crowd-pleaser. It's an honest, grounded film that speaks to the real lives of women trying to escape violence-and rebuild from the rubble. It deserves to be seen and talked about, not just as a work of cinema, but as a window into lives often overlooked.

Shayda is an astonishing debut film. It lays bare the complex and at first subtle ways the husband tries to use and manipulate his 'beloved' wife and daughter, and the enormous resilience, strength, courage, adaptability, and intelligence the women, including the wife, the 6-year-old daughter, the shelter owner and the other women and children living there, require and display as they fight hard to preserve their joy and inner peace and retake control over their lives. The best possible performances, directing, cinematography, and writing. Incredibly inspiring and empowering despite the painful subject matter.