Director: Arman Fayyaz
Cast: Nima Hasandokht
Pesare Khorshidi is a 2023 Iranian short film directed by Arman Fayyaz, running eighteen minutes. Set against a backdrop of rural sacred sites, it weaves faith, family obligation, and moral ambiguity into a compact, quietly unsettling story about two brothers and a secret they share each night.
What is Pesare Khorshidi about?
Every evening, a young man's older brother falls into a state of paralysis the moment the sun dips below the horizon — movement and speech return only when daylight touches him again. Unwilling to leave his brother helpless in the dark, the younger sibling loads him up and drives him out to remote shrines scattered across the countryside, spending the night in vigil. When dawn restores the older brother to full health, he steps out of the car, looks around at the holy ground, and announces that a miracle has taken place. What began as quiet devotion turns into something far more complicated as the younger brother must decide how to hold two contradictory truths at once — the mechanical reality of what happens each night, and the story his brother tells the world each morning.
Cast & crew
Arman Fayyaz directs with the economy that short-form storytelling demands, letting the landscape and the brothers' unspoken bond carry the emotional weight. Nima Hasandokht takes on the central role, grounding a premise that could easily tip into the fantastical with a steady, watchful physicality that keeps the film rooted in human feeling rather than spectacle.
Context & significance
Iranian short cinema has long used condensed form to ask questions that longer narratives sidestep. Pesare Khorshidi sits within a tradition of films that treat rural sacred geography — shrines, pilgrimage roads, desert dawns — as moral testing grounds rather than picturesque backdrops. For diaspora viewers who grew up navigating the tension between inherited faith and private knowledge, the film's central dilemma — whether to protect a brother's story or to name what you have actually witnessed — will land with particular sharpness. Its brevity is intentional; eighteen minutes is exactly the time it takes for a single night's journey, and Fayyaz does not let a frame go to waste.
Where & how to watch
Pesare Khorshidi is available now on K-Time with original Persian audio. Watch on the web browser, your television, or your phone — no VPN needed, no geo-blocking, and no extra download required. Subscription can be cancelled anytime.