Why Cate Blanchett felt 'compelled' to bring an Iranian woman's story to the screen in Australia

Director Noora Niasari deeply understands the personal struggles of people who often go unnoticed by the mainstream of life. Her first film, the 2017 short Tâmfor a Vietnamese woman caught up in a cataclysmic sexual encounter, it's a haunting punch to the gut.

Noora and I are from different generations and cultures. However, she lived in the same suburb of Melbourne that I grew up in, and we were both raised by isolated single mothers in predominantly female environments. So the moment I read Shayda – Noora's first major script – there was a powerful emotional crossover that made my heart skip a beat.

The work of Iranian directors such as Asghar Farhadi and Abbas Kiarostami have been a huge influence on me, but it has always felt like a cultural weakness for me to have the opportunity to enter their worlds. To read the strongly resonant words of an Iranian female director on my doorstep was not only a surprise, but I felt compelled to help bring Noora's film to the screen.

Based on Noora's childhood experiences, Shayda is set in the 1990s, but chillingly the plight of women like the title character has intensified and become more pervasive in Iran and elsewhere. I knew Noora's story was culturally emotional right away, but unfortunately, I had no idea how urgent it would become.

The plot is deceptively simple: Shayda, an Iranian immigrant to Melbourne, estranged from her husband, takes refuge in a local women's shelter with her young daughter and tries to restart her life, making plans to celebrate the Persian New Year. Events, however, escalate relentlessly. Ultimately, the story that emerges from this intensely personal and domestic scenario pulses with wider cultural resonances.

The situation in Iran, and elsewhere in the world, is still terrifying for women. I knew the Shayda, while set precisely in the Iranian diaspora community in Australia, would resonate powerfully with such domestic trials in this urgent global debate. In Noora's skillful hands, what we have is a film that is a tender and heartbreakingly vulnerable exploration of a family falling apart (I kept thinking Kramer Vs. Kramer as well as Asghar Farhadi A separation). Shayda's story is one that resonates across cultural differences. Perhaps this is what led the film to win the festival-awards-2023-winners-list-1235241722/” data-type=”link” data-id=”https://deadline.com/2023/01/sundance-film-festival-awards-2023-winners-list-1235241722/” target=”_blank”>audience award at the Sundance Film festival last year.

There are so many domestic moments Shayda that show deep, personal courage. But after the death of 2022 Mahsa Amini in the hands of the self-appointed “morality police”, these seemingly small personal moments in the film have taken on a global political dimension.

When Shayda insists on a divorce, cuts her hair, or openly defies her husband in public, this woman's quiet heroism speaks directly to the “Women, Life, Freedommovement, which highlights the dire situation of women experiencing the dark storm of oppression in Iran. The central role of Shayda, wonderfully played by Zar Amir (We wouldn't have a film without her!) allows the viewer to unemotionally but urgently reflect on this plight. When you're not in direct geographical contact with the conflicts in a culture other than your own, you often don't fully grasp them until a volcanic eruption occurs.

The film is a powerful “prequel” to what we are watching unfold right now. Perhaps the one that is most demonstrably current and timeless Shayda However, it allows the audience to look back to the 1990s and witness the gradual domestic changes that, when scrutinized, attest to how oppression accumulates and forms in a society and ultimately in some cases culminates in horrific human rights abuses. rights.

Shayda it is a moving, heroic and ultimately triumphant story. The film is not didactic or preachy. It's not a history lesson. What it does is give viewers time to reflect. time to place their personal experience in the political context, and inevitably the global predicament.

Cate Blanchett is an award-winning actress and producer. She, along with Andrew Upton and Coco Francini, heads it dirty moviesthe independent film and television production companyy which co-production Shayda