Director: Rakhshan Banietemad
Cast: Habib Rezaei, Mohammad Reza Foroutan, Mehrave Sharifinia, Golab Adine, Mehdi Hashemi
Gheseha (Stories) is a 2014 Iranian drama film directed by Rakhshan Banietemad, one of Iran's most celebrated filmmakers. Returning to feature cinema after an eight-year absence, she weaves seven interconnected lives into a portrait of working-class Tehran that is both intimate and sharply observed.
What is Gheseha about?
Across the sprawling neighborhoods of Tehran, seven ordinary people navigate the weight of everyday hardship. A struggling laborer tries to hold his family together; a young woman fights for dignity at the margins of society; a man chases a dream that keeps slipping out of reach. These separate lives never quite intersect in dramatic fashion — instead they press against each other quietly, each thread illuminating a facet of the same city and the same grinding economic pressure. Banietemad builds no single hero; the film belongs equally to all seven, their stories accumulating into something larger than any one of them alone.
The K-Time take
Banietemad shoots with documentary-like restraint, trusting her ensemble cast to carry emotional weight without melodrama. The mosaic structure rewards patient viewers: the later stories deepen in meaning once the earlier ones have settled, and the cumulative effect is quietly devastating. It is the kind of social cinema that observes rather than lectures.
Cast & crew
Director Rakhshan Banietemad is widely regarded as the leading female voice in Iranian cinema, known for character-driven portraits of ordinary Iranians. The ensemble includes Habib Rezaei, Mohammad Reza Foroutan, Mehrave Sharifinia, Golab Adine, Mehdi Hashemi, Hassan Majooni, Babak Hamidian, and Negar Javaherian — a remarkable gathering of some of Iran's finest screen performers across generations.
Context & significance
For the Iranian diaspora, Gheseha carries a particular resonance: it depicts a Tehran that is recognizable and lived-in, not a backdrop for politics but a city full of people managing rent, relationships, and quiet aspirations. Banietemad has spent decades documenting working-class Iranian women and men whose stories rarely reach international screens. Watching this film outside Iran, many diaspora viewers find themselves reconnecting with an everyday fabric of Persian life — the rhythms of speech, the texture of neighborhoods, the particular weight of economic uncertainty — that feels both familiar and painfully distant.
Where & how to watch
Gheseha is available on K-Time with original Persian audio and no geo-blocking, so you can watch from anywhere — on the web, your TV, or your phone. No VPN needed, no extra download. Subscribe once and cancel anytime.