Director: Dariush Farhang

Cast: Khosro Shakibai, Niki Karimi, Parviz Parastouei, Fahimeh Rastkar, Niku Kheradmand

Ravani is a 1997 Iranian mystery film directed by Dariush Farhang, starring Khosro Shakibai and Niki Karimi. Set against a backdrop of fate, prophecy, and personal reckoning, the film follows a young woman whose sense of her own mortality pulls her toward choices she cannot fully control.

What is Ravani about?

Maryam carries a quiet conviction that her days are numbered. Yet two unexpected encounters unsettle everything she thought she knew. A fortune teller speaks of an engineer arriving with flowers — a marriage proposal waiting to unfold. Meanwhile, a wandering traveler claims to have witnessed a mysterious figure dressed in white who holds the power to heal Maryam's unnamed affliction. Caught between omens and her own longing, Maryam steps toward marriage, only to find that this union is neither an answer nor an ending, but a new threshold in a journey whose destination she cannot see.

Cast & crew

Director Dariush Farhang, one of Iran's distinctive voices in literary and atmospheric cinema, shapes the film's tone with restraint. Khosro Shakibai, a towering presence in Iranian cinema known for deeply interior performances, anchors the drama alongside Niki Karimi, whose expressive range lends Maryam both vulnerability and resolve. The supporting cast includes Parviz Parastouei, Fahimeh Rastkar, Niku Kheradmand, and Fakhreddin Seddigh Sharif.

Context & significance

Iranian mystery films of the 1990s often blurred the line between psychological realism and folklore, drawing on a long tradition of Persian storytelling rooted in fate, omens, and the unseen hand of destiny. Ravani sits within this tradition — a film concerned less with whodunit mechanics and more with the interior life of a woman navigating prophecy and personhood. For diaspora viewers who grew up with these narrative rhythms, the film offers a recognizable cultural texture: the fortune teller, the wanderer, the stranger in white. These are figures from a shared imaginative heritage, reimagined for the screen with the spare, deliberate style that marked Farhang's work.

Where & how to watch

Ravani is available on K-Time in its original Persian audio. You can watch on the web, on your TV, or on your phone — no VPN needed, no geo-blocking, and no extra download required. Cancel anytime.