Written and directed by Tahmineh Milani, Dige Che Khabar (1992) is a light-footed comedy with a science-fiction wink, and one of the more unusual entries in early-1990s Iranian cinema. Mahaya Petrossian heads a cast that also features Danial Hakimi and Jahangir Almasi.
What is Dige Che Khabar about?
Milani, who both wrote and directed, works in a register Iranian cinema has rarely attempted: comedy laced with science fiction. The pairing of those two genres promises a story in which everyday routines and flights of imagination are allowed to collide, and in which the humour comes as much from how ordinary people react to the improbable as from the improbable itself. Mahaya Petrossian, Danial Hakimi and Jahangir Almasi head the cast, and much of the fun over the film's 110 minutes lies in watching performers with distinct comic temperaments share the same increasingly unlikely situations. Produced by Reza Banki together with Milani and Mehdi Ahmadi Garkani, the film was completed in 1991 and reached Iranian cinema screens in October 1992 — a moment when a genre experiment like this stood out sharply from everything around it.
About the cast
Mahaya Petrossian leads the cast with the mischievous energy that makes her such a watchable screen presence. Danial Hakimi and Jahangir Almasi round out the principal trio, and the interplay between three very different performers gives the comedy its rhythm.
Context & significance
Genuine science-fiction comedy has always been rare in Iranian cinema, which makes Dige Che Khabar something of a curio: a woman filmmaker taking a genre detour at a moment when the industry offered few of them. For viewers who know Milani's name from elsewhere, the appeal of seeing her work in a playful key is obvious, and the film's comic register makes it an inviting entry point into her filmography. Seen today, it also doubles as a snapshot of early-1990s Iranian popular cinema filtered through a comic lens.
Watching Dige Che Khabar on K-Time
Dige Che Khabar streams on K-Time — sign in with a free account and press play, while the page itself is open to any reader. K-Time serves Persian speakers around the world with a fully Farsi interface, and Milani's other films sit in the same catalogue if this one sends you down her filmography.