Director: Rouhollah Hejazi
Cast: Reza Attaran, Sara Bahrami, Siamak Ansari, Nazanin Sahamizadeh, Sargol Lavasani
Roshan is a 2021 Iranian drama film directed by Rouhollah Hejazi, starring Reza Attaran in the title role. The film follows a middle-aged man whose lifelong passion for acting collides with the unraveling pressures of everyday life in contemporary Iran, forcing him to confront who he truly is when circumstances strip everything away.
What is Roshan about?
Roshan is a middle-aged Iranian man with an abiding love for the stage and screen — a man who has always been more comfortable inhabiting a character than facing his own reality. When his long-awaited registered apartment slips through his grasp, the carefully maintained order of his life begins to crack. Standing at the threshold of losing everything he has worked toward — his home, his stability, his sense of self — Roshan makes a fateful decision: he will play his part, right to the very end. The film unfolds as an intimate portrait of a man choosing performance over surrender, and asking what remains when the curtain finally falls.
Cast & crew
Reza Attaran, one of Iranian cinema's most versatile comic-dramatic actors, brings rare emotional depth to the title role of Roshan. Sara Bahrami, known for her nuanced performances in Iranian social dramas, appears opposite him in a key role, while Siamak Ansari, Nazanin Sahamizadeh, Sargol Lavasani, Mohammad Valizadegan, and Mehdi Hosseininia round out an ensemble drawn from Iran's established theatrical and film community.
Context & significance
Iranian social drama has long used the lens of ordinary urban life to examine questions of dignity, aspiration, and systemic pressure. Roshan fits firmly within that lineage — a character study set against the mundane yet crushing reality of housing shortages and middle-class precarity in modern Tehran. For diaspora viewers, the film carries a particular resonance: the gap between the life one was promised and the life one actually inhabits is a tension that travels well beyond Iranian borders. Director Rouhollah Hejazi grounds this universal theme in very specific Persian social textures, making the film feel both local and deeply recognizable to audiences watching from Toronto, Los Angeles, or Stockholm.
Where & how to watch
Roshan is available to stream on K-Time with original Persian audio. Watch on the web, on your smart TV, or on your Android phone — no VPN needed, no geo-blocking, no extra download required. Start and cancel anytime.