Director: Behrouz Nouranipour
Cast: Abdollah Zavareh, Bahareh Maroufi, Naser Babaeina
Dayan is a 2018 Iranian drama film directed by Behrouz Nouranipour, telling the harrowing story of nearly four thousand female asylum seekers trapped behind enemy lines during wartime, separated from their families and forced to make impossible decisions under crisis.
What is DAYAN about?
During a brutal period of armed conflict, thousands of women seeking refuge find themselves stranded on the wrong side of an international border. Cut off from husbands, children, and parents, they live in a state of prolonged captivity with no clear path home. As the war grinds on, entire families face wrenching choices: wait indefinitely, attempt dangerous crossings, or accept a fractured life. The film traces the human toll of displacement through intimate, ground-level moments — grief, solidarity, and the quiet endurance of women who have lost everything except their will to survive.
Cast & crew
The film is directed by Behrouz Nouranipour, a filmmaker whose work gravitates toward socially charged human stories. The lead ensemble includes Abdollah Zavareh, Bahareh Maroufi, and Naser Babaeina, each bringing grounded, restrained performances that honour the gravity of the real-world events the film dramatises.
Context & significance
Dayan occupies a meaningful place in Iranian cinema's long tradition of humanist war drama — films that resist glorifying conflict and instead amplify the voices of its most vulnerable victims. For members of the Iranian diaspora, many of whom carry their own family histories of displacement, border crossings, and loss, the film's subject matter resonates with visceral familiarity. It reflects an experience that stretches from the Iran-Iraq War era through successive waves of emigration, reminding viewers that the human cost of conflict is measured not only in battlefields but in the lives quietly shattered on either side of a border.
Where & how to watch
Dayan is available on K-Time in its original Persian-language audio with subtitles. Watch on the web, your TV, or your phone — no extra download needed, no VPN required, no geo-blocking. Start and cancel anytime.