Javad Ezati headlines Dozist ("Amphibious"), the 2020 drama in which director Borzou Niknejad tells a story of old friendships pushed to their breaking point.
What is Dozist about?
Niknejad plants his camera in a working-class neighbourhood, among a knot of men who have known each other since childhood and still orbit the same streets, the same jokes, the same unpaid debts. The fragile balance of that circle starts to tip when money enters the picture — and with it the possibility of a different life, somewhere else, for whoever is willing to reach for it first. Loyalty, pride and old grievances begin pulling in different directions, and the group discovers how quickly a lifetime of brotherhood can turn into a ledger of who owes whom. The title's image of a creature living between two worlds hangs over all of them: men caught between the neighbourhood that made them and the future they think they want.
About the cast
Javad Ezati, one of the busiest leading men in contemporary Iranian cinema, carries the film's emotional weight and its flashes of dark humour. Setareh Pesyani — a respected presence on both stage and screen — plays opposite him, with Elham Akhavan rounding out the principal cast.
Context & significance
What stands out most in Dozist is Borzou Niknejad's ear for everyday banter and his warmth toward flawed, ordinary men — the film's texture is built out of the small talk and small grievances of daily life. Dozist is a 2020 release and runs a compact 95 minutes. It belongs to a familiar and much-loved strain of Iranian drama — the neighbourhood ensemble piece — but filters it through the very modern anxiety of emigration and the question of what a person owes the people they grew up with.
Watching Dozist on K-Time
Dozist streams on K-Time: log in with a free account and it plays on your TV, phone or browser. The page you are reading is free for everyone. K-Time is made for Persian speakers abroad, with a Farsi interface throughout — fitting for a film whose dialogue lives and breathes everyday Persian street talk.