Director: Shahabeddin Hosseinpour
A recorded stage production, Galilei brings Bertolt Brecht's play about the astronomer Galileo Galilei to a Persian-language theatre audience, staged under the direction of Shahabeddin Hosseinpour and released in 2023.
What is Galilei about?
The performance follows a seventeenth-century scientist whose observations of the heavens call into question the accepted picture of the cosmos held by the Church of his day. Working from Brecht's text, the staging presents him not as a remote figure of pure intellect but as a man caught between two pressures: the caution demanded by the authorities of his era and the pull of his own convictions. Over roughly two and a half hours, the ensemble traces his findings, the reactions they set off, and the compromises he weighs in order to keep working.
Cast & crew
Farhad Aeesh takes the central role, supported by an ensemble that includes Sadaf Espahbodi, Mohammad Naderi, Mohammad Motazedi, Yashar Khamseh, Shahrouz Delafkar, Elmira Dehghani, and Farbod Farhang. Direction of the production is credited to Hosseinpour.
Context & significance
Galilei sits in the theatre category rather than conventional cinema; it is a filmed record of a stage production first mounted in 2023. Its source is Brecht's mid-twentieth-century play about Galileo, a work built around the documented episode in which the astronomer's support for a sun-centred model of the solar system placed him at odds with the religious institutions of Renaissance Italy. The runtime is listed at 145 minutes. Brecht's script has been performed in many countries and languages over the decades, and this version presents it in Persian for an Iranian audience. Anyone approaching it should expect the conventions of theatre, a fixed set, extended passages of dialogue, and performances pitched for a live room, rather than the pacing of a feature film.
Where & how to watch
Galilei can be streamed on K-Time once you are signed in with a free account, while this page itself stays open to read without logging in. The platform is built for the Iranian diaspora, and its Farsi-first interface makes it straightforward to find Persian-language theatre and film.