Director: Ali ShirKhodai
Cast: Ramtin Zad
Ramtin Zad is a 2024 Iranian documentary directed by Ali ShirKhodai, offering an intimate portrait of one of Tehran's most distinctive contemporary visual artists — a painter and sculptor whose canvases pulse with improvisation, speed, and crowded human figures.
What is Ramtin Zad about?
The film follows the creative world of Ramtin Zad, a Tehran-born artist who trained in graphic design at Jihad University before pivoting entirely to fine art. Beginning with his debut solo show at Golestan Gallery in 2006, he has since staged more than ten solo exhibitions and taken part in group shows both inside Iran and internationally. The documentary examines how Zad's paintings and sculptures function as two sides of the same creative impulse — each medium informing and expanding the other. At the heart of his practice is a commitment to immediacy: he treats the speed of mark-making not as a limitation but as a generative force. Some works are spare, anchored by a single figure; others press figures and objects together until the canvas feels like a crowded street corner. The film grants viewers rare access to the studio atmosphere and the artist's evolving language.
Cast & crew
Director Ali ShirKhodai trains his lens on Ramtin Zad, the artist and sole subject. Zad was born in Tehran in 1984, holds an art diploma from Tehran Payam Contemporary Art School, and earned his undergraduate degree in graphic design from Jihad University in 2006. His career as a painter and sculptor has produced more than a decade of solo and group exhibition work across Iran and abroad.
Context & significance
For Iranian diaspora viewers, art documentaries like this one serve as a living connection to the cultural landscape they left behind — or never had the chance to witness firsthand. Tehran's contemporary art scene is often invisible to audiences outside Iran, and Ramtin Zad represents a generation of Iranian artists who came of age after the revolution and forged a visual language that is entirely their own. His work — improvisational, dense, and energetic — sits at the intersection of expressionism and street-level realism, qualities that feel deeply familiar to anyone who has navigated Tehran's crowded, layered streets. Watching this documentary is a way of reclaiming that world.
Where & how to watch
Ramtin Zad is available now on K-Time in its original Persian audio. Stream it on the web, on your TV, or on your phone — no geo-blocking, no VPN required. Start a subscription and cancel anytime.