Shayda

Noora Niasari's 2023 Australian film follows Shayda, an Iranian woman who has fled her husband and moved with her six-year-old daughter into a women's shelter. While the divorce proceeds the court grants the father visits, and each visit means a new threat. The director wrote the film out of her own childhood, and it is set in Australia in the nineties. Its strength is keeping the threat constantly felt rather than shown: a doorbell, a telephone, a car in a car park. Zar Amir Ebrahimi's performance carries fear and resolve at once. The preparations for Nowruz give the film a second rhythm. It won the audience award at Sundance. Who it's for: viewers interested in the experience of migration and films about domestic violence. Who it's not for: anyone avoiding content involving violence and threat, or wanting a comforting conclusion.