Filmfest 3,14 presenterer regissør Noora Niasaris Shayda

Time: Saturday 27. April, 20.00

Place: Cinemateket i Bergen, USF

Language: English, Persian

Subtitles: English

Duration: 1h 57 min

Shayda follows an Iranian immigrant woman in Melbourne, Australia.

She is raising her six-year old daughter Mona while seeking legal help to divorce her abusive husband Hossein while seeking refuge in a women’s shelter. The story takes place in the 1990’s during the two weeks of Iranian New Year (Nowrooz) which is celebrated as a time of renewal and rebirth. When a judge grants Hossein visitation rights, he re-enters their life, stoking Shayda’s fear that he’ll attempt to take Mona back to Iran. Aided by the strong community of women at the women’s shelter, they seek their freedom in this new world of possibilities, only to find themselves facing the same violence they have tried so hard to escape.

Iranian-Australian filmmaker Noora Niasari’s powerful debut feature is a beautifully crafted, poetic portrayal of courage and compassion, anchored by a heart-rending performance by Zar Amir Ebrahimi (2022 Cannes’ best actress award winner for Holy Spider). Ebrahimi captures the vulnerability and confliction, but also the radiant soul of an Iranian woman who boldly claims her human rights: to divorce her husband, keep her child, and dress as she chooses. The film is a personal meta-fiction based on Niasari’s own childhood, marked by a fraught parental dynamic and endless uncertainty, but also fierce, unshakeable motherly love.