SHAYDA (Melbourne IFF 2023) – Review by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas
On the back of her extraordinary performance in Ali Abbasi’s Holy Spider that saw her win the Best Actress Award at Cannes in 2022, Zar Amir-Ebrahimi tackles a very different character in Noora Niasari’s devastating yet moving Shayda. Set in suburban Australia, the film’s title character Amir-Ebrahimi packs a powerful performance as an emotionally shell-shocked Iranian woman who finds herself suddenly alone with her six-year-old daughter Mona hiding out in a women’s shelter as she attempts to divorce her abusive husband,
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