Shayda

Shayda (2023)

A love letter to mothers and daughters everywhere

Shayda, a young Iranian woman living in Australia, finds refuge in a women’s shelter with her 6-year-old daughter, Mona. Having fled her husband, Hossein, and filed for divorce, Shayda struggles to maintain normalcy for Mona. Buoyed by the approach of Nowruz, she tries to forge a fresh start with new and unfettered freedoms. But when a judge grants Hossein visitation rights, he reenters their life, stoking Shayda’s fear that he’ll attempt to take Mona back to Iran.

Date of release
2023-09-28
TMDB
6.8 / 10 (27)
Runtime
1h 58m
Genres
Drama
Director
Noora Niasari

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Awards: 1 · Nominations: 1. Including: Sundance Film Festival - Audience Award – Best Foreign Feature Film

Shayda is a 2023 Australian drama film written, directed and co-produced by Noora Niasari, with Vincent Sheehan co-producing. The film stars Zar Amir Ebrahimi, Osamah Sami, Mojean Aria, Jillian Nguyen, Rina Mousavi, Selina Zahednia, and Leah Purcell. The story follows an Iranian immigrant woman in Australia who is raising her young daughter as the two live in a women's shelter.

Production

Shayda was written and directed by Noora Niasari. Most of the dialogue is in Persian. The story is based on Niasari's memories of living at the women's shelter as a child, and features Persian cultures and traditions, including Nowruz (Persian New Year), with its theme of renewal and rebirth.

The film was executive produced by Cate Blanchett via her Dirty Films company, and co-produced by Niasari and Australian filmmaker Vincent Sheehan. Blanchett said in an interview: "Vincent and Noora had been developing Shayda for some time and they brought it to us toward the end of the development process to help secure financing and key cast members...

The film features the 1991 Rozalla song "Everybody's Free (To Feel Good)", which Niasari grew up with, and said that it "just beautifully exemplifies that sense of a woman having agency", at Shayda's euphoric moment of liberation.

Key to the film is the relationship between mother and daughter Mona, with the two actresses, Zar Amir Ebrahimi and Selina Zahednia (who was cast in Melbourne) bonding in real life and continuing to maintain a connection afterwards.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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