Director: Saeed Motalebi
Cast: Naser Malek Motiee, Manoochehr Vossoogh, Amin Amini, Lida Daneshvar, Mir Mohammad Tajaddod
Sar Goroohban is a 1972 Iranian drama film directed by Saeed Motalebi, starring Manoochehr Vossoogh and Naser Malek Motiee in a tense story of flight, guilt, and the perils of crossing a forbidden border in southwestern Iran.
What is Sar Goroohban about?
After committing a violent act against his wife, a man named Hojjat flees to the port city of Khorramshahr, seeking escape from the consequences closing in around him. There he makes contact with Rahman, a local figure who offers a way out — a clandestine overnight crossing of the blue border into neighboring territory. What follows is a grim journey through darkness and uncertainty, as agents tasked with hunting Hojjat close the distance. The film traces a man reduced to desperate choices, moving through a landscape where trust is scarce and every step forward carries the weight of what was left behind.
Cast & crew
Manoochehr Vossoogh, one of pre-revolution Iranian cinema's most recognized leading men, carries the central role with the brooding intensity he brought to many films of the era. Naser Malek Motiee appears in a supporting capacity, alongside Amin Amini, Lida Daneshvar, Parisa, Hossein Eshragh, Mir Mohammad Tajaddod, and Nariman Shirifard. The film is directed by Saeed Motalebi.
Context & significance
Sar Goroohban belongs to a strand of Iranian commercial cinema from the early 1970s that drew on crime and thriller conventions while grounding stories in specific Iranian geographies. Khorramshahr, a city on the Shatt al-Arab waterway at the Iraq border, lends the film its distinctive atmosphere — a frontier city long associated with cross-border movement, trade, and risk. For diaspora viewers, this kind of film captures something of pre-revolutionary urban and provincial life that has largely disappeared from screen. Vossoogh's presence alone marks the film as a document of a particular moment in Iranian popular culture, before cinema there transformed entirely after 1979.
Where & how to watch
Sar Goroohban is available on K-Time in its original Persian audio. Stream on any browser or TV device — no VPN needed, no geo-blocking, no extra download required. Membership can be cancelled anytime.