Australian-Iranian writer/director Noora Niasari’s feature debut Shayda, which premiered at Sundance and has opened this year’s Melbourne international film festival, is a deeply engrossing, gradually escalating drama about a mother and daughter rebuilding their lives during a stay in a women’s shelter. It’s a film with airtight verisimilitude: you don’t doubt its authenticity for a moment. Tension is skilfully sustained throughout and the drama has a pressurising effect, the air intensifying in a long, slow rise towards crescendo, Niasari never quite releasing the pressure valve and never taking the easy route.
Central to the film is a faultless leading performance from Zar Amir Ebrahimi as the titular protagonist, who attempts to flee an abusive husband, Hossein (Osamah Sami), soon to finish studying medicine and intending to return home to Iran. Shayda has different plans and files for divorce, seeking refuge in a shelter with their six-year-old daughter Mona (Selina Zahednia).
Shayda’s fear that Hossein will leave Australia with their child is captured in the opening scene, when Mona’s taken to an airport and told to familiarise herself with the setting. This is brisk, compact writing, broadly establishing the central predicament while naturally evoking the question of what happens next, all of it unfolding in a way that feels totally germane to this world.
Shot in Melbourne but taking place in an undisclosed Australian city, the film is set in 1995 in the lead up to and during Persian New Year, the celebrations signifying an opportunity for rebirth – though Niasari doesn’t overegg the symbolism. Nothing in Shayda feels laboured. The director sticks closely to her actors, prioritising people over place, which is why the women’s shelter – run by the kindly Joyce (Leah Purcell) – never really comes alive as a location. And perhaps also why the film’s hues are scaled back, borderline glum: because humans are the providers of colour and vitality.
Many moments would feel small in other dramas: for instance, when Shayda receives a phone call from her mother encouraging her to give Hossein another chance. “At least he’s a good father,” her mother says, reminding her that “he’s going to be a doctor soon.” This painfully resonant scene begs the question: how many other women have experienced similar conversations? How often is abuse minimised or ignored?
Domestic violence remains an under-explored subject in Australian film and television, some small headway being made recently in television productions such as The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart and SBS’ series Safe Home, which revolves around a family violence legal centre. The latter opts for a mosaic-like approach, using vignetted portraits to cross class, ethnic and geographical divides, trying to capture the big picture but limiting and compartmentalising storylines.
Shayda shows the power of a focused personal narrative. This film (inspired by Niasari’s own childhood experience of living in a Brisbane refuge) captures one woman’s circumstances but it’s clear, without the director applying highlighter pen, that this is tragically the story of many women.
After Shayda screened at Sundance, word spread that Ebrahimi’s performance was something to look out for. But I was still struck by the strength and quiet dignity of it: the way she holds herself; how her presence simultaneously conveys strength and fragility, hurt never far from the surface.
Shayda’s tucked in aspect ratio has a psychologically condensing effect, concentrating the drama. It continues a recent trend of first-time Australian film-makers who’ve eschewed the traditional widescreen for a more boxed-in look. Other examples including Goran Stolevski’s You Won’t be Alone and Thomas M Wright’s Acute Misfortune. The camerawork of cinematographer Sherwin Akbarzadeh (who recently shot the excellent Bob Brown documentary The Giants) often homes in on Ebrahimi’s face, a well of feeling and energy. Niasari regularly resists cutting away, letting these shots breathe, turning images into moments. Some scenes, particularly in Shayda’s second half, linger perhaps a tad too long, but I don’t want to sound nitpicky: this is a resounding achievement, and Niasari an exciting new voice in Australian cinema.
Shayda is screening as part of the Melbourne international film festival; and will receive a general release in Australia on 28 September. It is out in UK cinemas from 19 July.
