The story of Canada’s No. 1-ranked flyweight boxer, Iranian-born Nyousha Nakhjiri, will make its big screen debut this weekend in the documentary Constant Battles.
But Nakhjiri won’t be able to make it as she’s still in the ring.
The 29-year-old is currently representing Canada at the 2026 World Boxing Cup in Foz Do Iguaca, Brazil, after winning the 48kg division at the 2025 Canadian boxing national championships last November.
Her ultimate goal however, is to compete at the Olympic Games.
“It would mean the world to me,” Nakhjiri told CBC Sports. “Who would pass up on the opportunity to represent Canada at the Olympics?”
Nakhjiri’s arduous journey to try and become the first Iranian-born woman to box at the Paris 2024 Olympics is captured in the film, which premiers at Toronto’s Hot Docs festival on Saturday.
“Even though I’m technically representing Team Canada, because unfortunately I don’t have the opportunity to represent Team Iran, I still carry that with me everywhere I go,” said Nakhjiri, a Canadian citizen who trains out of Quinit Boxing in Vancouver. “I feel like in a small way, I’m trying to represent the people of Iran and the women of Iran, especially.”
Nakhjiri’s personal challenges navigating anxiety — attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) — and her mother’s trauma from fleeing Iran, a country where women are banned from competing in boxing, are all central themes in the film.
The story of 29-year-old Iranian-born boxer Nyousha Nakhjiri is featured in a new documentary called ‘Constant Battles,’ which will premiere at Toronto’s Hot Docs Festival on April 25th.
Finding the freedom to compete
Nakhijri was born and raised in Iran, where she says she was a “hyper-active” child, often moving around and kicking soccer balls, behaviour that was frowned upon for little girls.
“I would do well in every class, but in Iran we’d have a grade in school for behaviour, and that was always low for me,’ she said. “Growing up I slowly started seeing the difference between what women and men can do [in Iran].”
Growing up, she often tried to blend in with the boys, playing sports with her brother and sometimes being mistaken for one, a mix-up she says worked in her favour as girls weren’t encouraged to play sports in Iran.
By the time Nakhijri was a young girl, her mother decided to immigrate the family to Canada in 2009 in search of a life with more freedom.
By her late teens, when Nakhjiri was facing a particularly challenging time battling with her mental health after receiving her ADHD diagnosis, she decided to sign up for her first boxing class.
“If we hadn’t moved here, there is absolutely no way I would have ever boxed,” Nakhjiri said in the film. “It’s hard to think that if I went back home to my home country, I wouldn’t even be able to train.
When she stepped into the ring, she was hooked.
A story of mental health in sport
“I didn’t know that I even had ADHD, and I think once I found boxing, it just helped me clear my mind,” she said,”That’s kind of how my obsession with it started.”
It was the mental health aspect of Nakhijiri’s story that connected documentary filmmaker Mackenzie Stannard to the boxer.
“Boxing is such a sport that you have to put on this tough exterior and this has been here and seen as invincible,” Stannard told CBC Sports. “Taking some of those layers down is helpful for people to see that this is stuff that everybody deals with.”
Stannard followed Nakhjiri with a camera for over the span of two years, documenting her all-consuming goal to qualify for the Paris 2024 Olympics.
Ultimately, she failed to win the match that would secure her qualification at the Games, putting her four years away from the next opportunity to qualify again.
“I was surprised at how quickly Nyousha bounced back from that loss because the first loss that we witnessed was devastating,” Stannard said, “I hope it gives people a reminder to be flexible with your goals and with your dreams… it’s a bit of a cliche, but enjoying the process of something is what’s important and not so much the outcome.”
Following the boxing World Cup in Brazil, Nakhjiri will compete at the 2026 Continental Championships this October, where her success would put her on track for the 2027 world championships and the 2027 Pan Am Games, both opportunities for qualification to the LA 2028 Olympics.
But for the boxer, getting to the biggest world stage would carry meaning far beyond sport.
“I am so proud of my background and culture and heritage,” she said. “It would be amazing to represent both Canada and Iran.”
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