The Australian drama premiered at Cannes and stars Cate Blanchett.
Warwick Thornton’s The New Boy leads the nominations for the 2024 Aacta (Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts) Awards with 12 nods, closely followed by horror Talk To Me with 11 nominations.
The New Boy is up for best film, actress for Cate Blanchett and actor for newcomer Aswan Reid while Australian Indigenous filmmaker Thornton is nominated for best director, screenplay and cinematography.
The film is set in 1940s Australia and stars Blanchett (who also serves as a producer) as a nun who takes in a nine-year-old Aboriginal orphan boy. It...
Warwick Thornton’s The New Boy leads the nominations for the 2024 Aacta (Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts) Awards with 12 nods, closely followed by horror Talk To Me with 11 nominations.
The New Boy is up for best film, actress for Cate Blanchett and actor for newcomer Aswan Reid while Australian Indigenous filmmaker Thornton is nominated for best director, screenplay and cinematography.
The film is set in 1940s Australia and stars Blanchett (who also serves as a producer) as a nun who takes in a nine-year-old Aboriginal orphan boy. It...
- 12/11/2023
- by Michael Rosser
- ScreenDaily
Editor’s Note: This review was originally published at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. Sony Pictures Classics will release “Shayda” in select U.S. theaters on March 1, 2024.
The actress Zar Amir Ebrahimi’s eyes are an arresting contradiction. In “Shayda,” dark circles hang heavy below them, contributing to her world-weary, anxious gaze. But if you look deeper into her uneasy stare and almost translucently hazel irises, there lurks a bit of light, and a sense of hope that hasn’t been completely stamped out.
In Noora Niasari’s debut feature, Ebrahimi is cast as the eponymous Shayda, an Iranian woman living in Australia in 1995, trying to break free of her abusive husband Hossein (Osamah Sami), who’s finishing his medical studies in Brisbane. Her immense exhaustion is visible from the film’s first scene, in which she instructs her six-year-old daughter Mona (Selina Zahednia) what to do if Hossein tries to kidnap her.
The actress Zar Amir Ebrahimi’s eyes are an arresting contradiction. In “Shayda,” dark circles hang heavy below them, contributing to her world-weary, anxious gaze. But if you look deeper into her uneasy stare and almost translucently hazel irises, there lurks a bit of light, and a sense of hope that hasn’t been completely stamped out.
In Noora Niasari’s debut feature, Ebrahimi is cast as the eponymous Shayda, an Iranian woman living in Australia in 1995, trying to break free of her abusive husband Hossein (Osamah Sami), who’s finishing his medical studies in Brisbane. Her immense exhaustion is visible from the film’s first scene, in which she instructs her six-year-old daughter Mona (Selina Zahednia) what to do if Hossein tries to kidnap her.
- 1/24/2023
- by Susannah Gruder
- Indiewire
‘Shayda’ Review: Powerful Debut Feature Shines a Timely Light on an Iranian Woman’s Resilient Spirit
In resiliently fighting for their human rights and dignity, Iranian women were deservedly named Time magazine’s Heroes of the Year in 2022. Their fierce uprising erupted last fall, after 22-year-old Mahsa Amini was arrested by the morality police for not fully complying with the government’s antiquated dress code, and died three days later in police custody. Set in the ’90s in an Australian city, writer-director Noora Niasari’s quietly powerful “Shayda” doesn’t, on the surface, have a direct connection to these recent events. But one can’t help but detect the same strength and heroic spirit in the film’s eponymous protagonist, a young Iranian woman who demands a free life on her own terms, away from the shadow of her abusive husband, and the patriarchal norms and codes of conduct that suffocate her existence.
If “Shayda” (with Cate Blanchett among its executive producers) skews too predictable at...
If “Shayda” (with Cate Blanchett among its executive producers) skews too predictable at...
- 1/20/2023
- by Tomris Laffly
- Variety Film + TV
Within the unassuming exterior of a suburban house, the central setting in Shayda, a handful of women are working to reclaim their lives. The title character is one of them, determined to leave an abusive marriage with her young daughter and not return to their native Iran. Unfolding in 1995 Australia, Noora Niasari’s debut feature is drawn from her experiences as a child in such a shelter and is at its core a tribute to the writer-director’s mother. Fueling the drama is the quiet ferocity of Zar Amir Ebrahimi’s performance and her tender chemistry with Selina Zahednia as 6-year-old Mona.
Early scenes are thick with shadows, a sense of danger lurking. Four years earlier, Shayda moved to Australia with Hossein (Osamah Sami) and their toddler daughter so that he could attend medical school. A student too, she has stopped wearing the hijab and embraced the relative freedoms of a Western woman,...
Early scenes are thick with shadows, a sense of danger lurking. Four years earlier, Shayda moved to Australia with Hossein (Osamah Sami) and their toddler daughter so that he could attend medical school. A student too, she has stopped wearing the hijab and embraced the relative freedoms of a Western woman,...
- 1/20/2023
- by Sheri Linden
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Writer-director Noora Niasari’s debut feature, Shayda, is a deeply personal tale of trauma and tenacity. With a script mining from Niasari’s lived experiences, the film centers on the titular character Shayda (Zar Amir Ebrahimi), an Iranian woman living in an Australian women’s shelter with her 6-year-old daughter. With the Iranian New Year upon them, Shayda attempts to forge a new life for them after her recent divorce from abusive husband Hossein. However, when a judge grants him visitation rights with his daughter, Shayda becomes increasingly concerned that her ex-husband will kidnap Mona and flee back to their native Iran. Cinematographer […]
The post “I Opted for a Low-key Chiaroscuro Look”: Dp Sherwin Akbarzadeh on Shayda first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post “I Opted for a Low-key Chiaroscuro Look”: Dp Sherwin Akbarzadeh on Shayda first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 1/20/2023
- by Filmmaker Staff
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
Writer-director Noora Niasari’s debut feature, Shayda, is a deeply personal tale of trauma and tenacity. With a script mining from Niasari’s lived experiences, the film centers on the titular character Shayda (Zar Amir Ebrahimi), an Iranian woman living in an Australian women’s shelter with her 6-year-old daughter. With the Iranian New Year upon them, Shayda attempts to forge a new life for them after her recent divorce from abusive husband Hossein. However, when a judge grants him visitation rights with his daughter, Shayda becomes increasingly concerned that her ex-husband will kidnap Mona and flee back to their native Iran. Cinematographer […]
The post “I Opted for a Low-key Chiaroscuro Look”: Dp Sherwin Akbarzadeh on Shayda first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post “I Opted for a Low-key Chiaroscuro Look”: Dp Sherwin Akbarzadeh on Shayda first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 1/20/2023
- by Filmmaker Staff
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
Each year, Filmmaker sends all Sundance feature film or series cinematographers a questionnaire to complete ahead of their film’s festival screening. We also send out editor questionnaires and a single question for feature directors to answer. Below, find links to individual cinematographer responses, which will be updated daily during the festival. “The Real Violence and Danger Women Sometimes Go Through When Giving Birth”: Dp Chananun Chotrungroj on birth/rebirth “The Cinema Gods Smiled Upon Us”: Dp Andrij Parekh on The Pod Generation “I Opted for a Low-key Chiaroscuro Look”: Dp Sherwin Akbarzadeh on Shayda “For This Project, I Had a Collection […]
The post 2023 Sundance Questionnaire: Cinematographer Responses first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post 2023 Sundance Questionnaire: Cinematographer Responses first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 1/20/2023
- by Filmmaker Staff
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
Each year, Filmmaker sends all Sundance feature film or series cinematographers a questionnaire to complete ahead of their film’s festival screening. We also send out editor questionnaires and a single question for feature directors to answer. Below, find links to individual cinematographer responses, which will be updated daily during the festival. “The Real Violence and Danger Women Sometimes Go Through When Giving Birth”: Dp Chananun Chotrungroj on birth/rebirth “The Cinema Gods Smiled Upon Us”: Dp Andrij Parekh on The Pod Generation “I Opted for a Low-key Chiaroscuro Look”: Dp Sherwin Akbarzadeh on Shayda “For This Project, I Had a Collection […]
The post 2023 Sundance Questionnaire: Cinematographer Responses first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post 2023 Sundance Questionnaire: Cinematographer Responses first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 1/20/2023
- by Filmmaker Staff
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
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