Director: Ebrahim Hatamikia

Cast: Faramarz Gharibian, Panteaa Panahiyha, Jahangir Almasi, Sam Gharibian, Kambiz Dirbaz

Khorouj is a 2020 Iranian drama film directed by Ebrahim Hatamikia, following a community of rural farmers whose crops are devastated by a bureaucratic error, and who undertake an extraordinary journey by tractor from their village to Tehran in search of redress.

What is Khorouj about?

When the mismanagement of a salt-water dam causes floodwater to be redirected across farmland belonging to a group of rural villagers, their entire harvest is ruined in a single stroke. Seeking accountability, the farmers appeal to successive layers of local authority — dam officials, the town mayor, the district governor, and the Friday prayer leader — but receive no resolution. With no other path available, the community resolves to carry their grievance directly to the president. They mount their tractors and set out on a slow, determined cross-country journey toward the capital. As their convoy moves through the landscape, media outlets pick up the story, turning a quiet rural dispute into a widely-watched event that brings the farmers both public sympathy and unexpected complications.

Cast & crew

The film is directed by Ebrahim Hatamikia, one of Iran's most prominent and long-established filmmakers. The cast includes Faramarz Gharibian, Panteaa Panahiyha, Jahangir Almasi, Sam Gharibian, Kambiz Dirbaz, Giti Ghasemi, and Mohammadreza Sharifinia — a gathering of experienced Iranian screen actors whose collective presence anchors the film's ensemble character.

Context & significance

Road narratives occupy a distinct place in Iranian cinema, and Khorouj works within that tradition by grounding its journey in a specific social setting: the working agricultural community of rural Iran and its relationship to urban authority. For diaspora viewers, the film offers a window into the friction between the countryside and the state apparatus, rendered through the lens of ordinary people navigating extraordinary circumstances. At 88 minutes, it is a compact, character-driven work that focuses on the texture of its characters' determination rather than on spectacle. Hatamikia has a long filmography built on socially engaged Iranian stories, and Khorouj continues in that mode, placing everyday figures at the center of a situation that gradually exceeds the scale of their daily lives.

Where & how to watch

Khorouj is available on K-Time with original Persian audio. Stream it on the web, on your TV, or on your phone — no VPN needed, no geo-blocking, and you can cancel anytime.