Director: Abbas Sam
Cast: Forough Jalali, Mohammad Hossein Pourkiani, Sarina Pishadast
Sayeha (Shadows) is a 2017 Iranian short film directed by Abbas Sam, running fifteen minutes and exploring what happens inside one family when a son walks back through the door carrying a faith — and a past — that none of them chose for him.
What is Sayeha about?
A teenage girl preparing for her final year of high school finds her world quietly upended when her older brother is released from prison. He left as one person and has come back as another: a convert to Islam in a household that practises Catholicism. The film follows a single afternoon in which the family must decide — without speeches or confrontations — how much space they are willing to make for the man standing in front of them, and how much of their own beliefs they are prepared to hold onto when tested by someone they love.
Cast & crew
Forough Jalali leads the film as the younger sister, bringing quiet attentiveness to a role that requires her to absorb tension rather than release it. Mohammad Hossein Pourkiani plays the returning brother, and Sarina Pishadast rounds out the family unit. Director Abbas Sam keeps the performances restrained, letting silences do the work that dialogue might oversimplify.
Context & significance
Short-form cinema in Iran has long served as a testing ground for voices that cannot yet access feature budgets, and Sayeha is a clear example of that tradition. Its subject — religious conversion within a family of a minority faith — is handled without polemic, which is itself notable given how charged such material can be. For diaspora audiences familiar with negotiating identity across generations and across belief systems, the film's central dilemma will feel recognisable: not a clash of civilisations but a quieter, more domestic question of who gets to change and who has to live with that change.
Where & how to watch
Sayeha is available on K-Time with the original Persian-language audio. No VPN is needed and there is no geo-blocking — watch on the web, your TV, or your phone. Subscription is month-to-month; cancel anytime.