Director: Mojtaba Pourbakhsh
Cast: Tahere Amoozadeh, Ramin Rousta, Houman Javadi, Mehri Al Agha
Khodahafez Olympic is a 2022 Iranian short film directed by Mojtaba Pourbakhsh, following a young female rower whose pursuit of an Olympic dream brings her face to face with obstacles that test her resolve, her relationships, and her sense of identity.
What is Khodahafez Olympic about?
A young Iranian woman has spent years training on the water, quietly building toward a single goal: a spot on the national rowing team and a chance to compete on the Olympic stage. When the moment of reckoning arrives, she finds the obstacles ahead are not only physical. Competing demands from family, institutional pressures, and doubts about her own readiness converge at a critical turning point. The film follows her through the weeks leading up to a pivotal selection event, tracing the gap between the athlete she is and the athlete the world expects her to be. At just twenty minutes, the story is tightly wound, letting gesture and silence carry as much weight as dialogue.
Cast & crew
Director Mojtaba Pourbakhsh guides the film with a restrained hand, drawing on a cast anchored by Tahere Amoozadeh in the lead role. Ramin Rousta, Houman Javadi, and Mehri Al Agha provide strong ensemble support, grounding the personal drama in convincing relationships without overpowering the central performance.
Context & significance
Iranian short film has long served as a proving ground for voices that the commercial feature industry has not yet reached, and Khodahafez Olympic fits that tradition squarely. Stories centred on female athletes carry particular weight for diaspora audiences, many of whom followed the real-world struggles of Iranian women seeking equal access to sport throughout the 2010s and 2020s. The rowing setting is unusual for Iranian cinema, lending the film a fresh visual register. For viewers outside Iran, a twenty-minute runtime makes this an easy, meaningful addition to a viewing session, and a useful entry point into contemporary Iranian short-form storytelling.
Where & how to watch
Khodahafez Olympic is available to stream on K-Time with Persian subtitles. Watch on the web, your TV, or your phone with no VPN needed and no geo-blocking. Subscribe and cancel anytime.