Director: Abdolreza Manjazi
Cast: Khosrow Shakibaiy, Amar Tofighi, Fariba Kosari, Shohre Ghomri, Akbar Moghazezi
Sharghi is a 2008 Iranian drama film directed by Abdolreza Manjazi, starring Khosrow Shakibaiy as Hamed Sharghi, a theatre student whose creative ambitions and personal life unravel simultaneously, forcing him to confront parallels between his own struggles and his father's unspoken past.
What is Sharghi about?
Hamed Sharghi is a dedicated theatre student preparing a performance for a prestigious festival, supported by his fiancée. When an unforeseen crisis derails the project and his group falls apart, his fiancée also walks away, leaving Hamed adrift and alone. His mother, sensing his despair, urges him to revisit a set of shared memories — one full day recounting his father Khosrow's early migration from the provinces to Tehran. As Hamed pieces together those recollections, he begins to recognise striking echoes between his father's youthful hardships and his own present-day unravelling. The film moves between past and present, quietly asking whether the choices one generation buried in silence shape the next generation's crises without either party knowing it.
Cast & crew
Khosrow Shakibaiy, one of Iranian cinema's most revered character actors, anchors the film as Hamed, bringing lived-in warmth and restrained anguish to every scene. Fariba Kosari and Shohre Ghomri provide strong support in the women's roles, while Amar Tofighi, Akbar Moghazezi, and Mirtaher Mazloum round out the ensemble, lending the theatre milieu an authentic sense of camaraderie and tension.
Context & significance
Sharghi sits within a tradition of Iranian introspective dramas that explore the fault lines between urban ambition and provincial roots — a theme deeply familiar to the diaspora. The film's generational structure, contrasting a son's crisis with a father's migration story, resonates strongly for Iranian audiences who themselves navigated displacement. Abdolreza Manjazi uses the theatre world as both setting and metaphor: rehearsal, performance, collapse, and reconstruction mirror the emotional arcs of its characters. For viewers who left Iran in search of new beginnings, the film's quiet investigation of inherited patterns and unspoken family legacies carries particular weight.
Where & how to watch
Sharghi is available to watch on K-Time with original Persian audio — no dubbed track is included. Stream it on your browser, TV, or phone without any geo-blocking or VPN. A K-Time subscription covers the full catalog, and you can cancel anytime.