Director: Hossein Mahkam
Cast: Baran Kosari, Habib Rezaei, Hasan Ma'juni, Parsa Pirouzfar, Soheil Mostajabian
Bi Hessi Mozeiy is a 2019 Iranian drama film directed by Hossein Mahkam, running 80 minutes and featuring a chamber-style night story about a restless young man whose accidental encounters in Tehran unravel the quiet despair beneath ordinary lives.
What is Bi Hessi Mozeiy about?
Jalal is a philosophy student who abandoned his studies and carries a persistent, undefined restlessness. When he discovers that his sister — who lives with bipolar disorder — has married a wealthy man consumed by football gambling, something breaks in him. He leaves in anger and heads across the city toward Bahman's apartment; Bahman is a friend who composes music in secret, outside the official cultural establishment. During that nighttime journey Jalal crosses paths with Nasser, a taxi driver whose manner is unsettling and hard to place. What follows is not a plot driven by incident but by conversation, silence, and the friction between people who carry different kinds of numbness. The night stretches and bends in ways neither man expects.
Cast & crew
Director Hossein Mahkam frames the film around a strong ensemble. Baran Kosari brings quiet intensity to her supporting presence, while Habib Rezaei and Hasan Ma'juni ground the film's realist register. Parsa Pirouzfar and Soheil Mostajabian round out a cast whose performances rely on restraint rather than declaration — a deliberate choice that suits the material.
Context & significance
Iranian art-house drama of the 2010s developed a distinctive strand: urban night films in which Tehran becomes a pressure chamber for characters who cannot speak their frustrations openly. Bi Hessi Mozeiy — the title translates roughly as Shoe Numbness or The Numbness of the Shoe — belongs to that current. Its concern with mental illness, underground art, and the gap between inherited expectation and lived reality resonates with diaspora viewers who left Iran during exactly the years this film depicts. The film's low-key visual grammar and confined timeframe recall the chamber dramas of Asghar Farhadi's early career, though Mahkam pursues a more fragmented, nocturnal mood.
Where & how to watch
Bi Hessi Mozeiy is available on K-Time in original Persian audio. Watch on the web browser, your television, or your phone — no VPN needed, no geo-blocking, no extra download required. Start and cancel anytime.