Director: Fariborz Saleh
Cast: Mohammad Bagher Tavakkoli, Ataollah Kameli, Parviz Firozkar, Maziar Bazyaran, Shahab Askari
Daam-e Namarei is a 1979 Iranian thriller film directed by Fariborz Saleh, running 187 minutes. The film centers on a high-ranking military officer whose secret collaboration with a foreign intelligence service is uncovered by Iranian intelligence operatives, setting off a tense espionage confrontation.
What is Daam-e Namarei about?
A senior army general, Mogharrabi, has been secretly feeding classified information to Soviet intelligence — the KGB. As he prepares to transmit another batch of sensitive data to his handlers, Iranian counterintelligence agents close in. The moment of transmission becomes the moment of his exposure. The film tracks the mechanics of the trap laid around him: the surveillance, the careful timing, and the eventual unraveling of a career built on dual loyalty. Told in the procedural style of Cold War spy cinema, the story stays focused on the cat-and-mouse tension between Mogharrabi and the agents pursuing him, without dramatizing the geopolitical conflict beyond what is immediately relevant to the characters on screen.
Cast & crew
The film is directed by Fariborz Saleh. The cast includes Mohammad Bagher Tavakkoli and Ataollah Kameli in leading roles, with support from Parviz Firozkar, Maziar Bazyaran, Shahab Askari, Ali Sabet, Tooraj Nasr, and Amir Hooshang Ghate'i. This ensemble of Iranian cinema actors from the late 1970s brings a grounded authenticity to the spy-thriller premise.
Context & significance
Daam-e Namarei belongs to a strand of pre-1979 Iranian genre cinema that drew on the conventions of Cold War espionage drama popular in European and American films of the era. The story of a double agent within the military apparatus reflects anxieties about institutional loyalty and foreign interference that were common themes in Iranian popular cinema of that decade. For diaspora viewers, the film offers a window into the texture of Iranian commercial filmmaking just before a significant rupture in the country's cultural history. Its procedural pacing and ensemble cast are characteristic of the thriller productions of that period, making it a document of a particular moment in Iranian cinema as much as it is a genre entertainment.
Where & how to watch
Daam-e Namarei is available on K-Time in its original Persian audio. You can watch on the web, on your TV, or on your phone — no VPN needed, no geo-blocking, and no extra download required. Sign up and cancel anytime.