Director: Shahram Mokri
Cast: Mohammad Abbasi, Sadaf Ahmadi, Amir-Hossein Asani, Reza Behboudi, Hossein Farzi-Zadeh
Ashkan, Angoshtare Motebarek va Dastanhaye Digar is a 2009 Iranian action-drama-crime film directed by Shahram Mokri, weaving together a darkly comic ensemble of Tehran misfits whose lives collide through a string of absurd, interconnected misfortunes spanning a single chaotic night.
What is Ashkan, Angoshtare Motebarek va Dastanhaye Digar about?
A series of seemingly unrelated lives begin to bend toward each other when an ordinary object passes from hand to hand across Tehran. Two jewel thieves who navigate the city without sight cross paths with a despairing young man who keeps failing at every attempt to end his life. Meanwhile, a lovesick police officer struggles to focus on his duties, and two women working the overnight shift at a city morgue find themselves pulled into events far beyond their routine. As each character pursues their own desperate aim, a small but charged detail — a released fish, a ring reputed to carry unusual luck — quietly links them all. Mokri frames these collisions with a dry, observational eye, letting irony accumulate until the full shape of the evening becomes clear.
Cast & crew
Director Shahram Mokri, who would later earn international recognition with Fish and Cat, makes an assured early statement here. The ensemble includes Mohammad Abbasi, Sadaf Ahmadi, Amir-Hossein Asani, Reza Behboudi, Hossein Farzi-Zadeh, Houshang Ghovanloo, Hamid Moghaddam, and Ala Mohseni — a company of performers who sustain the film's deadpan register with precision.
Context & significance
Iranian cinema has a long tradition of interweaving everyday absurdity with social observation, and Mokri's debut sits squarely in that lineage while pushing toward something more overtly genre-inflected. The crime-drama framing, combined with dry comedy and a Tehran street-level milieu, echoes the kind of urban-ensemble storytelling that resonates deeply with diaspora audiences who recognise the city's particular texture — the gap between official order and lived chaos, the comedy of perseverance under pressure. For viewers outside Iran, the film offers a window into a side of Tehran rarely exported: unglamorous, witty, and human. Its compact 92-minute runtime and multi-strand structure reward patient attention.
Where & how to watch
Ashkan, Angoshtare Motebarek va Dastanhaye Digar is available on K-Time with original Persian audio. Stream it on the web, on your TV, or on your phone — no VPN needed, no geo-blocking, cancel anytime.