Director: Daryush Mehrjouiy
Cast: Ezzatollah Entezami, Ali Nasiriyan, Forouzan, Saeid Kangarani, Bahman Farsi
Dayere Mina (The Cycle) is a 1978 Iranian drama film directed by Daryush Mehrjouiy, following a desperate young man from Tehran's outskirts who discovers the city's underground blood trade while trying to secure hospital care for his gravely ill father.
What is Dayere Mina about?
Ali, a young man from a poor family on the margins of Tehran, brings his ailing father to a large city hospital hoping to get him admitted for treatment. When the hospital bureaucracy leaves them stranded on the pavement outside the gates for days, a street figure known as Samari approaches them. Samari runs a shadowy operation: he collects blood from destitute people and addicts, paying them almost nothing, then resells it to the hospital at a profit. Ali, with no other options and his father's condition worsening, is slowly drawn into this cycle of exploitation — trapped between the indifference of institutions and the predatory logic of survival on the street.
Cast & crew
Ezzatollah Entezami plays Samari, the blood broker, in one of his most chilling screen performances — a man who is outwardly helpful yet systemically ruthless. Ali Nasiriyan and Forouzan appear in supporting roles. Saeid Kangarani, still early in his career, carries the film as the young protagonist Ali, bringing raw authenticity to a role that demands both vulnerability and resolve.
Context & significance
Made two years before the 1979 revolution, Dayere Mina arrived at a moment when Iranian cinema was pressing hard against social boundaries. Mehrjouiy — already known internationally for The Cow (Gaav) — turned his lens on urban poverty, hospital access, and the commodification of human bodies in a society under pressure. The film was controversial at the time and was banned after the revolution before eventually being recognised as a landmark of pre-revolutionary Iranian social cinema. For diaspora viewers, it offers a rare unfiltered portrait of Tehran's underclass in the late Pahlavi era — a world that most left behind but that shaped the Iran they knew.
Where & how to watch
Dayere Mina is available on K-Time in its original Persian audio. Watch on your browser, TV screen, or phone — no VPN needed, no geo-blocking, cancel anytime.