Director: Abbas Kiarostami
Cast: Amin Maher, Kamran Adl, Mania Akbari, Roya Arabshahi
Dah (Ten) is a 2002 Iranian drama film directed by Abbas Kiarostami, shot entirely inside a moving car as a woman navigates Tehran's streets in ten separate encounters with passengers who reveal the anxieties, desires, and quiet struggles of contemporary Iranian life.
What is Dah about?
A divorced woman drives through Tehran and, across ten separate car rides, picks up a range of passengers: her resentful young son, a devout woman on her way to a shrine, a sex worker, a young bride, and others. Each conversation unfolds in real time with a fixed camera mounted on the dashboard, and through these intimate exchanges the film constructs a portrait of modern Iranian society — its contradictions, its gender tensions, and the small negotiations people make to get through the day. Nothing is resolved neatly; life simply continues past the windshield.
Cast & crew
The film was directed by Abbas Kiarostami, one of the most celebrated figures in world cinema and a defining voice of Iranian new wave filmmaking. Mania Akbari, who plays the driver, had minimal prior acting experience when cast; her naturalistic presence anchors every conversation. Amin Maher appears as the driver's son, delivering an emotionally raw performance that grounds the film's most charged exchanges.
Context & significance
Dah arrived at a moment when Iranian cinema was drawing sustained international attention, and Kiarostami's minimalist approach — no director of photography on set, no lighting crew, footage shot on consumer digital cameras — felt quietly radical. For diaspora viewers, the film offers something rare: the texture of everyday Tehran, its traffic, its neighborhoods, its conversations, rendered without government-sanctioned idealization. The women who pass through the car carry stories that resonate far beyond Iran's borders, touching on divorce, faith, loneliness, and autonomy in ways that remain urgent for Iranian communities living abroad.
Where & how to watch
Dah is available on K-Time in its original Persian audio with English subtitles — no Persian dub is offered for this title. You can watch on the web, on your TV, or on your phone, with no VPN needed, no geo-blocking, and no extra download required. Cancel anytime.