Hope and fear vie for prominence throughout Noora Niasaris debut feature Shayda, in which Zar Amir Ebrahimi (Holy Spider) enthralls as a Persian mother

living

in Australia

taking who takes

refuge in a womens shelter with her

6six

-year-old daughter Mona

(Selina Zahednia)

. Every time the camera holds on Shayda looking out a window, composing herself, buoying the child shes trying to keep safe the battle in her is palpable, to not give in to a very real and justifiable apprehension about their fate.

That the movie exists is, on one level, evidence of victory:

s S

et in 1995, its drawn from

the real-life experience of

Niasaris

own

mother,

who lefts own experience leaving

her husband when the filmmaker was a child, a bid for freedom that has borne fruit in a vital new directing voice from the Iranian diaspora. Shayda

entered the world last year winning a won a

Sundance award

last year

, and recently earned

the Australia-based

Niasari a DGA nomination for

Best F f

irst

F f

eature.

Its not necessary to know the

dedicative

origins of Shayda, however, to get swept up in its moment-to-moment tension, starting with an airport scene that lays out the hair-raising stakes:

c C

an this new runaway mom, with the help of kind shelter worker Joyce (Leah Purcell), get a confused, vulnerable child to memorize where they are and remember which uniform to run to in case

d D

addy suddenly

brings

absconds with her

there promising a trip back home to visit grandma

?

After that, we enter shelter life inside a plain-looking two-story suburban house in an unidentified city,

Niasari cagily leaving out details (even establishing shots) to heighten our sense of a protected space, but also a freshly anonymous life. Shayda tries her best to create a normal existence for Mona

(Selina Zahednia)

, albeit one under the same roof as other women

, and a couple kids,

enduring a similar trauma.

That community proves beneficial, as does prepping a

ceremonial

table for the upcoming Persian new year

‘ ‘s celebration

Nowruz, which offers Shayda solace in beloved ritual, and for the film, some helpfully metaphoric visuals, like a carefully tended bowl of sprouting herbs, or a spirited gathering where participants jump over fire. But in every seemingly ordinary contact with the wider Iranian community an interpreter over the phone translating her divorce petition, a close friend wanting her to socialize more, a market trip

in disguise

lies a barely concealed opportunity to feel a patriarchal regimes tarring shame. Or at worst, its potential danger.

The re

–

emergence, owing to a court order, of Shaydas estranged husband Hossein (an effective Osamah Sami) increases that sense of dread. Each unsupervised visit with Mona is marked by his manipulative prodding for information. In these throat-tightening scenes and their repercussions, Shayda is as queasily suspenseful as any

recent

domestic thriller has

ever

been, while thankfully avoiding the garishly exploitative (and racist) button-pushing of Hollywood dreck like Not Without My Daughter.

Rather, what comes to mind as Niasaris story unfolds is the urgency surrounding basic human rights that

Irans the Iranian

womens movement has advocated for since the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody in 2022. Shayda was filmed before that incident, but its arrival couldnt be timelier as a portrait of a womans courage and resilience in the face of overwhelming pressure to weather violence, stay hidden and live unfulfilled. And in charting that road from disorienting fragility to determined independence, Ebrahimi serves up a memorably nuanced performance.

Shayda is not as tight as it could be

,

and in Niasaris understandable prioritizing of the mother and daughter holding the center of cinematographer Sherwin Akbarzadehs claustrophobic box frame, the orbiting figures can seem less distinct

ive

. But

why

these are ultimately quibbles

:is because

Shayda achieves the remarkable feat of dramatizing

an

authentic jeopardy while never coming across like a woman-in-peril film. In fact, what may stay with you afterward is less pain and jitters than a throughline of dancing: Shayda cheering up her daughter, letting go at a club, lightening the mood in the shelter, and

en

livening a dinner party. The

dangerperil

for women like her may be real, but Niasari wont let it run Shaydas, or this movies, life.