Director / Writer Dana Ziyasheva Talks About 'Defenders of Life'
Director Dana Ziyasheva made her directorial debut, 'Defenders of Life' which focuses on the Ngäbe community, and the hardships Ngäbe girls faced in Costa Rica.

The film is based on a scene in Beethoven’s opera Fidelio. The inmates of the Seville prison are kept in dark cells without daylight. Now, for the first time after years, they are allowed to see the sun. Light as a metaphor for freedom.
Director Dana Ziyasheva made her directorial debut, 'Defenders of Life' which focuses on the Ngäbe community, and the hardships Ngäbe girls faced in Costa Rica.
I suppose you could argue that the story wasn’t what Director James Cameron was aiming for, it was the visuals. The spectacle of it all was the point, and it certainly shows.
Some people’s first introduction to Mira Nair might be as New York mayor Zohran Mamdani’s mom. But with her insightful direction of 1991’s Mississippi Masala, Nair shows how much she deserves to be known as an artist. Delivering a nuanced portrait of a romance between a Black man and an Indian woman living in the South, Nair explores the complications each character faces, giving both equal weight.
An analysis on how the Garfield movie fails to represent the characters it is adapting, especially the women, by removing their best characteristics.
Its predictability shouldn’t distract from the enjoyment that the pure cinematic imagination behind the camera elicits. It is a movie of crises both moral and mortal, oozing with CGI, and thoroughly enjoyable.
Steven Spielberg's West Side Story (2021) improves on the original's terrible representation, poorly written romance, and more. --> check out reviews & film summary