Few recent Iranian features have landed with the impact of Bidad. Soheil Beiraghi's drama follows a young woman who claims the streets of Tehran as her stage, and it turns a simple act — singing in public — into a story about courage, family, and the price of being heard.
What is Bidad about?
Seti has a voice she is not allowed to use. In Iran, a woman cannot legally sing solo before a public audience, so the concerts she dreams of stay permanently out of reach. Instead of waiting for a permission that will never arrive, she chooses a stage nobody can ticket and no door can close: the street. Her performances draw crowds first, then cameras, then attention of a kind she never planned for. As her following grows, so does the pressure from the people closest to her, and Seti must decide how much of her ordinary life she is willing to trade for the extraordinary one calling her name.
About the cast
Sarvin Zabetian carries the film in a striking lead turn as Seti, one of the most talked-about newcomer performances in recent Iranian cinema. Opposite her, Amir Jadidi — well known to international festival audiences — brings a grounded, unshowy presence, while veteran actress Leili Rashidi completes the central trio with a sharply drawn supporting role.
Context & significance
Beiraghi has built his career on portraits of Iranian women pressing against the limits set for them: his earlier features Me and Cold Sweat both centered determined protagonists colliding with legal and social barriers. Bidad extends that project into music, a field where the restrictions are among the most visible in daily life. Running a tightly paced 104 minutes, the film arrived in 2026 and quickly became a conversation piece among Iranians inside and outside the country — partly because its premise echoes real street performances that have circulated widely on social media in recent years.
Watching Bidad on Ktime
Bidad streams on K-Time with a free account login — this page is open for anyone to read, but pressing play requires signing in. K-Time is built for the Iranian diaspora, with a fully Persian interface and Persian subtitles available, so the film can be watched comfortably from anywhere in the world.