Australia submits Sundance winner for Oscars race
The Cate Blanchett-produced drama will compete for a nomination in the Best International Feature Film category.
Director Noora Niasari’s feature debut Shayda, produced by Cate Blanchett’s company Dirty Films, has been announced as the official Australian submission at the 96th Academy Awards.
The biographical drama, about an Iranian mother who finds refuge in an Australian women’s shelter with her six-year-old daughter, is vying for a nomination in the Best International Feature Film category. Niasari said that the film’s selection filled her with “an immense sense of hope and pride.”
“I see this film as an open invitation for audiences to recognise and celebrate the courage and resilience of Iranian women, Australian women and all women fighting for freedom and independence from domestic violence,” she said.
Shayda had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January, where it won the World Cinema Audience Award. It went on to open the Melbourne International Film Festival, and screened to 8,000 at the closing night of Locarno Film Festival.
The film was based on Niasari’s own experience of living in a women’s shelter with her mother from the age of five, after arriving in Australia from Iran when she was a baby. The director told The Australian that the film is “a love letter to mothers and daughters and to the brave women of Iran, because Shayda is just one of many courageous Iranian women fighting for her freedom.”
The film was executive-produced by Blanchett, and stars the Iranian-French actress Zar Amir Ebrahimi, who in 2022 won the Cannes Best Actress for Holy Spider. “It was also a good feeling to know that Cate Blanchett was behind us,” Amir Ebrahami old The Australian. “She’s attracted to these challenging, personal, low-budget projects, as I am too. I think we are crazy.”
Since 1996, Australia has submitted 16 films for the Academy Award for best international feature. With only one film, Martin Butler and Bentley Dean’s Tanna, earning a nomination for best Foreign Language Film in 2016.
A shortlist of 15 finalists will be announced on December 21, with the final five nominees announced on January 23.
Shayda will be released in Australian cinemas from October 5.