Director: Nader Saeivar
Cast: Maryam Boubani, Nader Naderpour, Ghazal Shojaei, Hana Kamkar, Abbas Imani
Shahed (شاهد) is a 2025 drama film directed by Nader Saeivar, a co-production between Austria and Germany. The film centers on a retired dance teacher in Iran who witnesses a violent crime and must decide whether to stay silent or speak out against powerful forces seeking to bury the truth.
What is Shahed about?
Tarlan is a retired dance teacher living in Iran whose quiet life is shattered when she witnesses the killing of a close friend at the hands of that friend's husband — a man with significant political connections. Authorities decline to pursue the matter, and those around Tarlan — including her own family — urge her to stay silent and move on. Tarlan, however, cannot reconcile herself to that silence. Alone and without institutional support, she begins a slow, dangerous effort to keep the truth alive, weighing the cost to her safety, her livelihood, and the few relationships she still holds. The film follows her as she navigates a world in which the mechanisms meant to deliver justice have been turned against her, and where the act of bearing witness carries its own profound consequences.
Cast & crew
Maryam Boubani leads the film as Tarlan, carrying the emotional and moral weight of nearly every scene. The supporting cast includes Nader Naderpour, Ghazal Shojaei, Hana Kamkar, Abbas Imani, and Farid Eshaghi, each bringing specificity to the social world Tarlan must navigate. The film is directed by Nader Saeivar, who co-developed the project across Austria and Germany.
Context & significance
For Persian-speaking audiences abroad, Shahed arrives as a film made in the European documentary-drama tradition — sober, observational, and grounded in the textures of everyday Iranian social life. Films concerned with women confronting institutional silence have a distinct place in Iranian and Iranian-diaspora cinema, and Shahed takes its place within that lineage. The story is set against the backdrop of heightened social tensions in contemporary Iran, reflecting conditions that many diaspora viewers will recognize from their own experience or from family accounts. The film asks quiet but serious questions about what it costs an ordinary person to refuse complicity — questions that travel well across geographic distance.
Where & how to watch
Shahed is available on K-Time in its original Persian-language audio. You can watch on the web browser, a connected TV, or your phone — no VPN needed, no geo-blocking, and no extra download required. Membership is cancel anytime.