Director: Kazem Ma'asoumi
Cast: Faghiheh Soltani, Shiva Boloorian, Shahram Abdoli, Mohammadreza Rahbari, Ali Sadeghi
Bazi Shabane is a 2008 Iranian drama film directed by Kazem Ma'asoumi, running 89 minutes. The film focuses on the dangers lurking in online chat rooms for young Iranians, tracing how digital anonymity can lead vulnerable youth into serious harm.
What is Bazi Shabane about?
A group of young people in contemporary Iran begins using the internet as an escape from daily pressures, forming connections through anonymous chat platforms. What starts as curiosity gradually pulls several of them toward shadowy figures who exploit their trust. The film follows the mounting consequences as their online activity crosses into real-world danger, forcing families and communities to confront an unfamiliar threat they are ill-equipped to handle. The story builds its tension through domestic scenes and quiet miscalculations rather than dramatic confrontations, keeping the focus on ordinary households where warning signs go unnoticed until it is too late.
Cast & crew
The film stars Faghiheh Soltani and Shiva Boloorian in the lead roles, supported by Shahram Abdoli, Mohammadreza Rahbari, Ali Sadeghi, Maziar Firouzmand, Ghazal Nazar, and Mir Taher Mazloomi. Director Kazem Ma'asoumi assembled a cast drawn from Iranian television and theatre, grounding the story in recognizable, everyday performances.
Context & significance
Released in 2008, Bazi Shabane arrived at a moment when internet access was rapidly expanding inside Iran and online-safety anxieties were new to Iranian families. The film belongs to a strand of Iranian social cinema that addresses modern urban risks in a domestic register — a tradition reaching back through the family dramas of the 1990s. For diaspora viewers, the story resonates beyond its Iranian setting: the gap between parents and children navigating an unfamiliar digital world is a universal pressure point, and the film treats it with honesty rather than sensationalism. Watching it today gives the story a period texture that adds to its documentary value.
Where & how to watch
Bazi Shabane is available to stream on K-Time in its original Persian audio. No VPN is needed and there is no geo-blocking — watch on the web, your TV, or your phone, and cancel anytime.