Leila’s Brothers — برادران لیلا — is Saeed Roustaee’s biggest, angriest film: a 165-minute family drama about money, pride and the slow grind of economic sanctions on an ordinary Tehran household. It premiered in competition at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the FIPRESCI Prize from the international critics.
What it’s about
Leila (Taraneh Alidoosti) is forty and has spent her whole life holding her family together — ageing parents and four brothers who argue constantly and never get ahead. Crushed by debt as the country buckles under sanctions, she pushes a plan: pool what little the family has, buy a shop, and finally climb out of poverty. Her father, Esmail (Saeed Poursamimi), has a different idea about where the family’s money and honour should go. What follows is a war of attrition inside one apartment, played out by one of the strongest casts Iranian cinema has assembled — Navid Mohammadzadeh, Payman Maadi and Farhad Aslani as the brothers.
Why it matters
Roustaee, who made Just 6.5 (Metri Shesh-o-Nim), writes families the way few directors do: loudly, with overlapping arguments that feel recorded rather than scripted. Leila’s Brothers is partly a story about patriarchy and partly a story about an economy that punishes people for trying. For the diaspora it carries an extra charge — the film’s journey to Cannes brought Roustaee a suspended prison sentence at home, placing him alongside Panahi and Rasoulof among the Iranian directors who paid a price for being seen abroad.
It is long and it knows it. The three-hour runtime is the point — Roustaee wants you inside this family until its arguments become your own. If you have the evening, it rewards it.
Where it sits in the catalogue
If you want more in this register, the 2024 Iranian films collection and the broader Iranian drama shelf carry the recent festival titles, including My Favorite Cake, another acclaimed drama that ran into trouble with the authorities.
Watching on K-Time
Leila’s Brothers streams on K-Time in original Persian, full quality, on Android TV, Fire TV, Google TV and Nvidia Shield — no VPN, no geo-block. Start a free trial, or pick up the pre-configured K-Time دستگاه at an Iranian shop in the Greater Toronto Area and have your parents watching tonight.