There’s not much to celebrate for Shayda (Zar Amir Ebrahimi, excellent) and her six-year-old daughter Mona (Selina Zahednia), holed up in an Australian women’s shelter to escape her controlling husband. But Shayda is determined that Mona won’t miss out on the celebration of Nowruz (Persian new year). The joyful rituals and parties offer Shayda the chance to reconnect with the woman she was before her marriage; she even begins to hope for a fresh start with a handsome Canadian-Iranian man named Farhad (Mojean Aria). But neither her husband nor the more conservative elements of her community are about to forgive the fact that Shayda fled her marriage.

The assured directorial debut of Noora Niasari, Shayda captures the claustrophobic tension and sickening dread of a wife trying and failing to evade the reach of a violent, angry man.

• In UK and Irish cinema