good.film
a year ago
Why should I see Shayda?
It’s one of the most accessible domestic violence stories we’ve seen, elevated by a pair of luminous and heartfelt performances.
What social causes does the film explore?
Survivors & Victims, Human Rights, Female Empowerment
Great film stories have a beautiful knack of reaching into our hearts and holding us still. Sitting in front of a screen, we give ourselves over to the story… and we’re transported.
As the flickering frames melt away, we’re soon embedded in our characters’ lives; feeling their fears, their desires and their joy. Given that power, there might be no better art form to convey the delicate story of a mother protecting her daughter from domestic violence.
“Women like my mother were ostracised for seeking basic human rights. The right to ask for divorce, to have custody over their children, to choose how they dress, to dance in the streets, to let their hair flow in the wind and exhale. That’s all my mother wanted, these basic freedoms, for herself and for her daughter.”
~ Noora Niasari
With her debut feature Shayda, Tehran-born, Australian-raised writer, producer and director Noora Niasari gently weaves a love letter to her culture. The film echoes with startling truth - because as a young girl, she lived this story. She was that daughter.
Now, Niasari has assembled a wondrous cast - headed by Iranian talent and Cannes Best Actress winner Zar Amir Ebrahimi - to bring audiences an insight into the life of not only her own mother, but of countless other brave women fleeing violence at the hands of their children’s father.
More than simply a survival story, Shayda is presented to us as an offering. It’s as if Niasari wants to say, yes, a man forced us to flee our home - but we refused to be torn from our culture.
In 1995 Australia, we meet nervous but determined Iranian mother Shayda. She’s made a home in Brisbane with her husband, Hossein, while he completes his medical degree. But after increasing abuse and manipulation, Shayda has left her husband, and fled to the protection of a secret women’s shelter with her wide-eyed 6 year old daughter, Mona.
From the first scene, director Noora Niasari plants seeds of tension that curl their roots under Shayda’s runtime. Shayda and Mona visit the airport with Joyce, the kind shelter director who’s helping Shayda build her case for a divorce. But there’s no incoming flight; this isn’t a warm family reunion. It’s a practice run, in case Hossein ever tries to kidnap Mona and return to Iran.
Under the icy tones of the fluorescent lighting, Joyce points out the security officials to Mona. There’s something really important she needs to remember: “If your father ever brings you here, you run and tell one of those people wearing blue, okay?”
“Ebrahimi captures the vulnerability and confliction, but also the radiant soul of an Iranian woman who boldly reclaims her human rights: to divorce her husband, keep her child, and dress as she chooses.”
Settling into Joyce’s domestic women’s refuge - now their home - Shayda does her best to rebuild a normal life for her confused daughter. Other mothers and daughters are sheltered in the home, and we share their small moments of happiness as autumn changes to spring: a cockatoo perched at the window; an impromptu group dance to a lively Persian song.
This relief is soon suffocated when a judge grants Hossein visitation rights. For four hours each weekend, Hossein takes Mona for outings that any Dad and daughter might share. A shopping trip, a visit to Maccas, a promise to finally see The Lion King.
But with every (public) drop-off and return, Hossein’s hostility escalates, stoking Shayda’s deepest fear: that her abusive former husband will attempt to take her daughter back to Iran.
Niasari brings a warm and glowing texture to Shayda that belies her first-time feature filmmaker status - and gives us emotional access to a heavy subject. This is not a film showing men being violent towards women (although of course, that’s its basis). Instead, this is a portrayal of courage and compassion. We lean in rather than shy away.
With subtitles, we learn alongside Mona as she watches her mother make preparations for Nowruz: the Iranian celebration of New Year held on the first day of spring. Niasari softly focuses her frame on the seven symbolic items that Shayda carefully arranges, representing the elements and forms of life - from olives and apples to sumac and sweet pudding. There’s even a new goldfish on display (which Mona gleefully names Simba).
Mona gets more cultural lessons from her mother, and the giggles, as they follow the steps of a traditional Persian dance from a crackly VHS tape (it’s implied the tape has been sent from Iran by Shayda’s mother; later, she asks on a long-distance call, should I send a rice cooker? When Shayda says no, her mother replies: “But life is so much better with a rice cooker!”)
By now we understand that young Mona is Noora Niasari’s proxy in this story. These early scenes are captured with an obvious tenderness that’s almost private; they’re deeply personal memories, filled with meaning.
“I grew up with all of the beauty of our culture. So I had a natural inclination to include those moments… It became fundamental to the story. You can feel the joyous moments even deeper when you have that tension or darkness around it.”
~ Noora Niasari
The beauty is laid bare against the complex nature of Iranian domestic relations, where a husband traditionally has complete authority over his wife. These are deep-rooted social beliefs around a husband’s role in a household; one that effectively renders many Iranian women as second-class citizens.
For context, a 2021 Human Rights Council report highlighted serious concerns regarding domestic violence in Iran. It stated that “in several areas of their lives, including in marriage, divorce, employment, and culture, Iranian women are either restricted or need permission from their husbands… depriving them of their autonomy and human dignity.”
Another study found that over half of all women in Iran are subject to some form of domestic violence in the first year of their marriage. It’s important to note that yes, there has been recent progress - but now mentally rewind that progress a quarter of a century to get a sense of the situation Shayda was forced to escape in 1995.
Shayda’s Australian life comes with new forms of unease: she faces stigma and judgement from other Iranian women for leaving her marriage, and Niasari includes several key scenes to help us further understand this. There are stares from her peers as she shops for groceries in Western clothing with her hair exposed; at a later gathering, a woman in a traditional Hijab refuses to attend because Shayda is welcome there.
We feel this most strongly when Shayda gives her victim statement in her divorce from Hossein. Supported by Joyce, Shayda does this on speakerphone with the help of a female translator. But she cuts off the call when the translator refuses to include a key detail about her marriage, then reveals that she knows Shayda’s name, risking her anonymity.
With these conflicts, Niasari is pointing out how culture can act to both support AND oppress us, and how deeply embedded social traditions can undermine women from supporting other women. Shayda is desperate to hold close the meaningful parts of her culture she’s connected to - while breaking free of the cultural aspects that oppress her.
The upshot? Shayda can’t feel truly safe, even in Australia where women enjoy greater freedoms than other countries. It underlines her bravery in leaving her husband - and her ties to her home and culture - to create a better life for her daughter.
Here’s where Shayda is at its most poignant. A marriage breakdown is already wrenching for a child without the added confusion of visitation rights, flight risks and threats - concepts that Mona is far too young to understand. The uncertainty in her huge young eyes (beautifully portrayed by newcomer Selina Zahednia) is heartbreaking. Worse still, Hossein’s feelings of powerlessness see him start using Mona as a pawn, to regain a sense of the control he’s lost.
A scene with Mona on the phone to her grandmother back in Iran has one of the strongest emotional beats in the film, when Mona asks the simple questions any child would: Why can’t we see you anymore? When can we see you again? The conflict on Shayda’s face - and the pain in her grandmother’s voice - is palpable when they promise her it won’t be long. We know the truth is far less certain: her grandmother is unlikely to ever make the long journey to Australia, and for Shayda it seems too dangerous to return.
“The emotion and the connection Noora exudes about her story is affecting and resonates long after - here is a new voice. A brave one. A distinctive one.”
~ Vincent Sheehan, Producer
Another way Niasari puts Mona in the crosshairs of her parents’ acrimony is the motif of two different necklaces. One is colourful and fun, bought for her as a gift by Farhad - a new, male friend of Shayda’s. The other has a more traditional Iranian design, and is bought by Hossein to replace it. It’s a subtle act of manipulation as Hossein grows more suspicious and hostile towards Shayda and her (still platonic) relationships, especially with other men.
Those seeds of tension finally erupt at a party where Shayda and Farhad grow closer, and Hossein tracks them down. With his patriarchal ownership of Shayda and Mona at its zenith, he tries to tear his daughter away, and the fear and confusion in her eyes - as she clings to a table leg for safety - speak volumes. Mona is only six years old. The injustice of her being trapped within this war is the beating heart of the story.
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Shayda could hardly be more timely, reaching cinemas against the backdrop of 2022’s death in police custody of Mahsa Amini, the 22-year-old law student who allegedly violated Iran's mandatory hijab law. The nationwide protests and civil unrest that followed Amini’s death were described as the most widespread revolt since 1979’s Islamic Revolution.
We were fortunate to attend a recent Q&A screening of Shayda with Director Noora Niasari, who spoke about Amini, other Iranian women like her, and how confronting it was to write a screen version of her own mother’s story. But revisiting her childhood trauma also brought Niasari its own blessing.
Commenting on the universality of the film and its themes, Niasari spoke about how audiences have brought their own experiences to Shayda. “We’ve screened it in Europe, North America and Australia and there is a real sense that it connects beyond my mother and I, beyond our experience,” Noora said. “It’s not about us any more. That feels liberating and cathartic.”
It’s a beautiful echo of a line Shayda herself says at one point in the film. Telling a friend about Nowruz, and what it means to her as the autumn leaves turn to spring, Shayda says: “It’s like a shedding. It’s a letting go.”
With Shayda, Noora Niasari has created a film that walks a tightrope: strung with tension, and yet flowing with beauty and empathy. She puts us gently in the shoes of a woman, a mother, an Iranian wife, and a victim of domestic violence. For this writer - who has none of those labels - that experience was nothing less than a privilege. Shayda is a warm reminder that film stories can indeed transport us - not only into other lives, but to new understandings.
“I never imagined a day would come where a Women-led Revolution would take hold in Iran as it is today. I am in awe of the millions of mothers and daughters fighting for these freedoms. This film is dedicated to my mother and the brave women and girls of Iran.”
~ Noora Niasari, Writer, Director, Producer