{"id":79308,"date":"2024-02-28T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-02-28T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/weareactors.com\/?p=79308"},"modified":"2024-02-29T16:43:33","modified_gmt":"2024-02-29T16:43:33","slug":"shayda-filmmaker-noora-niasari-will-never-be-able-to-show-her-film-in-iran-but-its-already-found-its-fans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/weareactors.com\/shayda-filmmaker-noora-niasari-will-never-be-able-to-show-her-film-in-iran-but-its-already-found-its-fans\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Shayda\u2019 Filmmaker Noora Niasari Will Never Be Able to Show Her Film in Iran, but It\u2019s Already Found Its Fans"},"content":{"rendered":"

Noora Niasari was editing \u201cShayda\u201d when the world changed \u2014 again \u2014 for Iranians.<\/p>\n

It was September 2022, and Mahsa Amini had just died in police custody, igniting the \u201cWoman, Life, Freedom\u201d movement in Iran. Halfway around the world, Iranian-born filmmaker Niasari struggled to concentrate on completing her film, which she hoped would offer a portrait of female defiance very much in line with the burgeoning movement. She would finish the film that fall and dedicate it to \u201cmy mother and the brave women of Iran.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since its Sundance 2023 premiere (where it won an audience award and was picked up by Sony Pictures Classics), it has screened at roughly 50 festivals and earned a DGA Award nomination. Last year, Australia picked it as its Best International Feature Film submission.<\/p>\n

Set in 1995 during the lead-up to the Persian New Year, \u201cShayda\u201d marks Niasari\u2019s feature debut. She previously directed a string of shorts films that, like \u201cShayda,\u201d touched on mother\/daughter dynamics (\u201cWaterfall\u201d), female subjectivity (\u201cT\u00e2m\u201d), and the Iranian exile experience (\u201cThe Phoenix\u201d). Niasari has called her debut feature an \u201cemotionally autobiographical\u201d work.<\/p>\n

The film draws on her mother\u2019s experiences after leaving her husband to reside in a women\u2019s shelter when Niasari was just five years old. The film condenses this eight-month period in their lives into a tumultuous two weeks, during which time Shayda\u2019s abusive husband tries to reenter their lives.<\/p>\n

\u201cShayda\u201d may sound bleak on paper, but Niasari and star Zar Amir Ebrahimi (\u201cHoly Spider\u201d) imbue the material with perpetual warmth and a spirit of resilience. \u201cShayda\u201d emerges more as a celebration of strong Persian women and culture \u2014 dance, poetry, music, and Nowruz all get their turns in the spotlight \u2014 than a tale of misery.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always wanted the film to have that sense of hope and light,\u201d Niasari told IndieWire during a recent video call from Los Angeles. \u201cI never wanted it to be steeped in victimhood.\u201d<\/p>\n

Niasari consulted with her mother at length about the consequences of telling this story. The film makes public a singularly traumatic period in their lives which, in the film, includes allusions to rape and domestic violence. It also depicts Islam\u2019s cultural influence in a negative light, though it remains reverential of secular Persian traditions.<\/p>\n

To release such a film would make Niasari and her family potential targets for the Iranian regime. It would, in short, mean that her family could likely never visit Iran again without putting themselves in significant danger. \u201cEarly on, [my mother] asked me to make [the family] a different culture, like Syrian or Lebanese,\u201d Niasari said. \u201cThere was one pass where I did that, a really early draft. She read it and said, \u2018I didn\u2019t make all of these sacrifices and risk so much and lose so much in order for you to censor yourself as an artist.\u2019 So she generously gave me the permission to really commit to telling the story the way it needed to be told. It was a very conscious and challenging decision, and I\u2019m so proud of my mom for finding that within herself and giving me that gift of a voice.\u201d<\/p>\n

The film bears some narrative resemblance to \u201cNot Without My Daughter,\u201d the fear-mongering Sally Field drama that terrified a generation of Iranians in the 1990s. Both films depict a controlling Iranian patriarch who abuses his wife and threatens to abduct their young daughter. In \u201cShayda,\u201d the husband Hossein wants to coerce the family back to Iran; in \u201cNot Without My Daughter,\u201d the husband Moody wants to trap them in the country for good. The similarities, thankfully, end there.<\/p>\n

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\u201cShayda\u201dSony Pictures Classics<\/cite><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Whereas \u201cNot Without My Daughter\u201d preys on Islamophobic fears, cast a white actor (Alfred Molina, embarrassingly) as a caricature of Muslim men, and centered the experiences of an American woman, \u201cShayda\u201d offers a nuanced and loving portrait of Persian culture at large. Niasari also sought to complicate the abusive-husband stereotype by casting an actor known in Australia for stand-up and romantic comedy (Osamah Sami) in the role of Hossein.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy mom watched [\u2018Not Without My Daughter\u2019] and said, \u2018No, we\u2019re not going to watch this together,\u2019\u201d Niasari recalled of her childhood. \u201cIt was just so inauthentic and villainizing of Iranians, and that\u2019s unfortunately been so much of the narrative since the [Islamic] Revolution and the Iran-Iraq War. After 9\/11, it just got worse and worse.\u201d<\/p>\n

Niasari is part of a growing movement she dubbed \u201cthe Iranian Diaspora Wave.\u201d She premiered \u201cShayda\u201d at Sundance 2023 alongside two other female Iranian directors: Maryam Keshavarz with her coming-of-age dramedy \u201cThe Persian Version\u201d and Sierra Urich with her documentary \u201cJoonam.\u201d All three films explore mother-daughter relations within an Iranian family in diaspora. Niasari says that it\u2019s only by \u201cbeing the authors of our own stories\u201d that Iranian filmmakers can inspire forward-thinking work and bury the racist depictions of the past.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope we can start to change some of those stereotypical depictions of us in film and TV,\u201d she said. \u201cThat\u2019s what I\u2019m fighting for, and hopefully the next generation will be able to see that. I didn\u2019t grow up with role models in terms of diaspora filmmakers. I feel really hopeful about our ability to tell a different kind of Iranian story in the diaspora, similar to the Italian-American filmmakers like Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though she views Iranian diaspora cinema as a positive force, Niasari bemoaned the \u201cbrain drain from Iran\u201d as more Iranians leave the country. According to census data, the number of Iran-born individuals who now live in Australia, for example, doubled from 2011 to 2021. Australia even chose \u201cShayda\u201d as its official selection for this year\u2019s Best International Feature Oscar (it was executive produced by fellow Aussie Cate Blanchett).<\/p>\n

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