Cate Blanchett and Zar Amir Ebrahimi are set to attend the Locarno Film Festival’s closing night to promote the European launch of Iranian-Australian director Noora Niasari’s debut film “Shayda.”
Blanchett is an executive producer on the drama, which world premiered at Sundance and scored the Utah festival’s audience award. “Shayda” stars Ebrahimi – who broke out last year as a Cannes prizewinner for her role in “Holy Spider” – as a domestic violence survivor during the ’90s in Australia who demands a free life on her own terms, away from the shadow of her abusive husband.
Variety critic Tomris Laffly in her review praised Ebrahimi’s turn in “Shayda” as a “quietly commanding performance” and underlined the film’s “unmistakably feminine spirit of perseverance, one that runs wild and free in this promising debut.”
“Niasari nimbly and steadily deepens ‘Shayda’ with a filmmaking style that carries traces of a documentarian’s off-the-cuff alertness, braiding it with qualities akin to a thriller,” Laffly noted.
Blanchett on the afternoon of Aug. 12 will also moderate a conversation between Niasari and Ebrahimi on “Iranian women and Iranian cinema” ahead of the “Shayda” screening on Locarno’s 8,000-seat Piazza Grande.
The “Shayda” screening will be followed by another screening of a surprise film history classic chosen by outgoing Locarno president Marco Solari as his salute after a 20-year stint during which the fest bolstered it status as Europe’s preeminent indie cinema temple.
The full lineup of the Locarno Film Festival will be unveiled on July 5.
The 76th edition will run Aug. 2-12.