Iranian Women Directors At Sundance Who Can’t Go Home – “I Guess That’s The Price Of Telling The Truth, And Telling Our Truth”
deadline.comMaryam Keshavarz, Noora Niasari and Sierra Urich have films at Sundance this year, two narrative features and a doc, wrenching and joyful family stories of the Iranian diaspora threaded with longing, regret and rebellion.
None deal with ongoing civil unrest there, but it colors the filmmakers’ work and life. “The woman-led revolution in Iran broke out while we were directing the film and it really propelled us to finish it. [It] gave us a unique energy so that we could amplify the stories of Iranian women,” said Niasari.
Her film Shayda follows an Iranian woman living in Australia who flees to a shelter with her frightened six-year-old daughter to escape her husband, Hossein, whom she wants to divorce.
Shayda (played by Zar Amir Ebrahimi, 2022 Cannes Best Actress winner for Holy Spider) is Niasari’s mother. “My mother’s story, my story, are [like] millions of our stories, and I just hope our films can be a drop in an ocean of change.” The three were part of a Pat Mitchell-moderated panel for a Sundance Women’s Day Celebration (the day before national Women’s March, ‘Bigger Than Roe’).
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