Twelve years is long enough for a country to change its mind. Eteraz (Protest), Masoud Kimiai's drama from 2000, is built on that gap: a man walks out of prison into an Iran that no longer speaks his language.
What is Eteraz about?
Amir has spent twelve years behind bars for a murder, and the world he trusted has aged without him. Freed at last, he returns to a country remade by the years he missed, where his brothers belong to a generation that argues its causes in words and print rather than settling them with a blade. Between them stands everything those years changed: politics, love, and the question of whether the old ways still mean anything. Mitra Hajjar rounds out the leading cast in the strand of the story where romance and loyalty collide, pushing the brothers to declare what they stand for. Kimiai keeps the drama at street level and lets the argument between generations play out in faces rather than speeches.
About the cast
Dariush Arjmand, a heavyweight of Iranian cinema and television, brings a granite stillness to the film. Mohammad Reza Forutan carries the restless energy of a younger generation, and Mitra Hajjar rounds out the central trio. Behind the camera is Masoud Kimiai, one of the founding figures of Iranian New Wave cinema.
Context & significance
Eteraz arrived in 2000, in the thick of Iran's reform period, and it carries an unusual charge: Kimiai, a director whose name is bound up with stories of loyalty, honor, and vengeance, here turns the camera on the kind of heroes his cinema is known for and asks whether their code survived the century. The social ferment of a changing Iran appears as the film's backdrop, treated as the texture of the time. It earned a solid, unshowy reception, but its real value for diaspora audiences is as a snapshot of a very particular Iranian moment.
Watching Eteraz on K-Time
You can watch Eteraz on K-Time after a free account login; browsing this page needs no account at all. The service is made for Persian-speaking audiences abroad — the interface runs fully in Farsi if you want it to — and plays on smart TVs, phones, and any modern browser, wherever you are.