Films

While We Are All Asleep

Chakameh Chamani lost her husband and child in an a car accident, and is under pressure from the driver's family lawyer to pardon him. She gives a ride to a man in her neighborhood who has just been released from prison—she learns the man was accused of killing his wife.

Original Title: Vaghti Hameh Khabim

Director & Screenwriter: Bahram Beyzaie

Cast: Mojdeh Shamsaie, Alireza Jalali Tabar, Majid Mozaffari

Cinematographer: Asghar Rafi Jam

Composer: Mohammad-Reza Darvishi

Producer: Bahram Beyzaie

Duration: 107 minutes

Killing Rabids

Golrokh Kamali recently left her husband, Nasser Moaser, suspecting he had an affair with his secretary. And yet, she returns to Tehran to save him after learning of his bankruptcy and imprisonment. 

Original Title: Sag Koshi

Director & Screenwriter: Bahram Beyzaie

Cast: Mojdeh Shamsaie, Saeid Shanbehzadeh, Parviz Pourhosini

Cinematographer: Asghar Rafi Jam

Composers: Saba Khozoee, Vartan Sahakian

Producer: Bahram Beyzaie (A Production by Lisar Film Group)

Duration: 145 minutes

Read more about Killing Rabids and the feminist portrayal of women in Iranian cinema

Travelers

Mahtab Maarefi travels to Tehran for her sister’s wedding and brings an auspicious mirror to the ceremony. She and her family are killed in a road accident. The wedding becomes a funeral, but the grandmother does not believe in the death of the travelers.

Original Title: Mosaferan 

Director & Screenwriter: Bahram Beyzaie

Cast: Mojdeh Shamsaie, Jamileh Sheikhi, Homa Rousta, Majid Mozaffari, Fatemeh Motamed-Arya

Cinematographer: Mehrdad Fakhimi 

Composer: Babak Bayat

Producer: Bahram Beyzaie, Abbas Shekhzadeh, Khosro Khosravi, Majid Rodiani 

Duration: 95 minutes

Maybe Some Other Time

Mr. Modaber, a documentary filmmaker, commentator, and narrator, becomes suspicious of his wife after accidentally seeing her picture with a stranger man. His wife Kian, who is busy with her parents' illness, is not aware of his suspicions. Mr. Modaber tries to find the strange man by monitoring his wife's every moment. However, he gradually realizes that Kian's parents are not ill, and Kian herself is sick and is desperately seeking to discover the cause of a memory rooted in the distant past. Mr. Modaber, after discovering the striking resemblance of the strange man's wife to Kian, begins to understand the complete picture—and perhaps the key to Kian's mental problem. And finally, in the new documentary that Mr. Modaber makes with the help of his colleagues, Kian confronts her past and the reality behind her nightmares is recorded in the film; a truth that now belongs to everyone.

Original Title: Shayad Vaghti Digar 

Director & Screenwriter: Bahram Beyzaie

Cast: Susan Taslimi, Dariush Farhang, Alireza Mojalal 

Cinematographer: Asghar Rafi Jam 

Composer: Babak Bayat

Producer: Mohammad Ali Farajollahi, Hushang Noorollahi, Reza Alipour, Asad Delshad Ershadi

Duration: 159 minutes

Bashu, the Little Stranger

A boy named Bashu hides in a truck when he sees the death of his family during an airstrike in his village in southern Iran. After a while, he falls asleep in the truck. When he awakes, he is in the north, where people do not understand his language, and he does not understand their local language. In this strange world, a woman named Na'i Jan who lives alone with her two children (her husband has gone to a distant city to find a job), takes care of him. Despite others' hostility and suspicion of this boy, she eventually adopts him.

Original Title: Bashu, Gharibeh Kochak

Director & Screenwriter: Bahram Beyzaie

Cast: Susan Taslimi, Adnan Afravian, Parviz Pourhosini

Cinematographer: Firooz Malekzadeh 

Producer: Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults

Duration: 120 minutes

The Death of Yazdgerd

It is historically said that, at the same time as the Arab invasion, Yazdgerd Shah III (the last Sassanid king), was killed by the miller who had sheltered him. This film is the story of the trial of the miller's family, as what they narrate about the incident actually becomes a trial of the Sassanid government. Eventually, the invading Arabs arrive, and there is no longer a difference between the fate of the accuser and the accused.

Written for the stage by Beyzaie, Death of Yazdgerd was originally staged in 1979. In 1982, Beyzaie directed the film version. 

Original Title: Marg Yazdgerd

Director & Screenwriter: Bahram Beyzaie

Cast: Susan Taslimi, Mehdi Hashemi, Yasman Arami, Amin Tarokh

Cinematographer: Mehrdad Fakhimi

Composer: Babak Bayat

Producer: (Lisar Film Group) For Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting TV1

Duration: 120 minutes

The Ballad of Tara

Beyzaie made "The Ballad of Tara" on the eve of the 1979 Iranian Revolution but the film was never publicly released.It is a symbolic magical realism film about Tara, a young window with two children.

On the road, one day, she meets a mythical man, looking for a sword which is the last sign of his descent on earth. Tara recognizes the sword as a useless legacy from her grandfather that she has thrown away. Tara later finds the sword and returns it to the man, but he can no longer leave because he has fallen in love with Tara. This nightmarish love goes nowhere except to disturb Tara's life and leads to the man’s death. In the end, the mythical man, but the sword remains as a reminder of him.

Original Title: Charikeh Tara 

Director & Screenwriter: Bahram Beyzaie

Cast: Susan Taslimi, Manuchehr Farid, Reza Babak

Cinematographer: Mehrdad Fakhimi

Producer: Bahram Beyzaie (A Production by Lisar Film Group)

Duration: 110 minutes

The Crow

Mr. Esalat, a television reporter and producer, comes across a photo of a missing girl in a newspaper whose face looks familiar. His wife is a deaf school teacher and is writing the memoirs of his stepmother, who is stuck living in the past. They all join the search Mr. Esalat has started. His search for the missing girl turns into a television show about missing people. His curious wife, Asieh, is the one who discovers that the missing girl is her stepmother's younger self.

Original Title: Kalagh 

Director & Screenwriter: Bahram Beyzaie

Cast: Parvaneh Masoumi, Hossein Parvaresh, Annik Shefrazian, Manuchehr Farid  

Cinematographer: Mehrdad Fakhimi

Composer: Sheida Gharachehdaghi

Producer: Bahman Farmanara (Iran Cinema Industry Development Company)

Duration: 120 minutes

The Stranger and the Fog

In a village by the sea, the tide brings a boat to shore with a wounded man who doesn't know what happened to him. Villagers name him ''Ayat'' and allow him to stay in the village and to become one of them. Despite objections, he marries Rana, whose husband has been lost at sea. Ayat thinks he may know something about what happened at sea. He begins to worry as he sees signs that those who injured him before will come for him again. Eventually, some people come from the sea to take Ayat away. A fight breaks out between the strangers and the villagers, but in the end a wounded Ayat returns to the sea and once again, the sea has taken Rana's beloved.

Original Title: Gharibeh O Meh

​Director & Screenwriter: Bahram Beyzaie

Cast: Parvaneh Masoomi,  Khosro Shojazadeh, Manuchehr Farid 

Cinematographers: Mehrdad Fakhimi, Firooz Malekzadeh 

Producer: Rex Theater Cinema Company

Duration: 140 Minutes

Downpour

Mr. Hekmati, a new teacher, has been transferred to a school in the south of the city. A student accuses him of falling in love with the sister of another student. The rumor spreads by word of mouth, and Mr. Hakmani's attempt to deny it and all of the opposition and controversy around it, make him actually begin to fall in love. However, at that moment, Mr. Hekmati is transferred to another school and has to leave the neighborhood.  

Original title: Ragbar

Director & Screenwriter: Bahram Beyzaie 

Cast: Parviz Fannizadeh, Parvaneh Masoomi, Manuchehr Farid 

Cinematographers: Barbad Taheri, Maziar Parto 

Composer: Sheida Gharachedaghi 

Producer: Barbad Taheri

Duration: 120 minutes

Martin Scorsese's World Cinema Project painstakingly restored the only known surviving print. Watch "Downpour," and hear from Bahram Beyzaie and Martin Scorsese about the film on the Criterion Collection website. 

Beyzaie Discusses Restored "Downpour" During San Francisco Screenings

The Talking Carpet

"The Talking Carpet" is an interpretation of the talking tree (Waq tree). According to the Shahnameh, on the tree branches there are the heads of men and women who could predict the future.

Original Title: Ghali-e Sokhangoo

Director & Screenwriter: Bahram Beyzaie

Narrator: Mojdeh Shamsaie

Cinematographer: Farshad Mohammadi

Composer: Mohammad-Reza Darvishi

Producer: Reza Mirkarimi

Duration: 8 minutes

Talking to the Wind

A strange woman appears in the way of a shopkeeper and tries to remind him of his past. The man does not remember anything and denies everything. 

Original Title: Goftehgoo Ba Baad

Director & Screenwriter: Bahram Beyzaie

Cast: Mojdeh Shamsaie, Majid Mozaffari, Mitr Hajjar, Reza Kianian, Dariush Arjmand

Cinematographer: Aziz Saati

Producer: Bahram Beyzaie 

Duration: 20 minutes

The Journey

A little boy and his friend start a journey to find his parents with new information he has obtained. "The Journey" is the story of these two boys on their search; one looking for his parents, and one hoping that these imaginary friends will help him find a better job. 

Original Title: Safar

Director & Screenwriter: Bahram Beyzaie 

Cast: Sirous Hasanpour, Abbas Dastranj, Parvaneh Masoomi

Cinematographer: Mehrdad Fakhimi

Producer: Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults

Duration: 34 minutes

Uncle Moustache

An old man is annoyed by children playing loudly. One day, the children accidentally break his window with a ball and run away in fear—they don't return to play near him. However, accustomed to their noise, the old man feels lonely and dismal and begins to look for them. 

Original Title: Amoo Sibiloo

Director: Bahram Beyzaie

Screenwriter: Bahram Beyzaie (based on a story by Fereydoon Hedayatpour) 

Cast: Sadegh Bahrami and the children of the Kan district in Tehran

Cinematographer: Nemat Haghighi 

Composer: Esfandiyar Monfaredzadeh

Producer: Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults

Duration: 29 minutes