Director: Sajad Afsharian
Cast: Sajad Afsharian, Morteza Darvishzadeh, Saeed Zarei, Nikoo Bostani, Gilda Vishki
Harkasi Ya Rooz Mimirad Ya Shab, Man Shabaneh Rooz is a 2022 Iranian theatre-film directed by Sajad Afsharian, running 86 minutes. It is a collage work that weaves together multiple independent short narratives — each self-contained, yet connected to the others through recurring themes of human experience.
What is Harkasi ya rooz mimirad ya shab man shabaneh rooz about?
The film presents a mosaic of fragmented stories, each standing on its own while quietly echoing the others. A street romance unfolds alongside memories of war. A prisoner waits in silence. A crowd moves through an unnamed city. None of these threads are resolved in the conventional sense; instead, the film holds them in suspension, allowing the accumulated weight of ordinary and extraordinary moments to speak. The title — roughly translated as 'Everyone dies by day or by night; I die around the clock' — sets the existential register from the opening frame. The stories share no single protagonist, yet together they sketch a portrait of lives caught between longing and limitation.
Cast & crew
Sajad Afsharian serves as both director and lead performer, a dual role that gives the film a strong authorial voice. Morteza Darvishzadeh, Saeed Zarei, Nikoo Bostani, and Gilda Vishki complete the ensemble. The cast draws on stage disciplines, and the performances carry the heightened physicality and precision associated with Iranian contemporary theatre.
Context & significance
Theatre-films occupy a distinctive corner of Iranian cinema — works that are staged for the camera rather than primarily for a live audience, preserving theatrical language (monologue, stylized movement, non-naturalistic time) within a filmic frame. This genre has a long tradition in Iran, tracing back through experimental companies and drama schools. Harkasi Ya Rooz Mimirad sits within that lineage, using the collage form — a sequence of loosely linked vignettes — to explore themes of love, memory, confinement, and social rupture. For diaspora viewers accustomed to narrative cinema, it offers a different register: contemplative, fragmentary, and close to poetry. The 86-minute runtime makes it accessible as a single sitting.
Where & how to watch
Harkasi Ya Rooz Mimirad Ya Shab, Man Shabaneh Rooz is available on K-Time. The film is in Persian with original audio — no dubbed version is included. Watch on the web, your TV, or your phone with no extra download required and no geo-blocking. Cancel anytime.