Director: Pouya Nabi

Cast: Hesam Mahmoudi, Mohammad Reza Ghaffari, Neda Jebraeili

Silent is a 2015 Iranian short film directed by Pouya Nabi, running twenty-two minutes and carrying an IMDb rating of 7.9. It traces the quiet fracture inside a young couple's engagement — a story of unspoken decisions, reluctant departures, and the friend caught in between.

What is SILENT about?

A year has passed since Navid and Sara became engaged, yet neither finds peace in the arrangement. Navid has quietly resolved to leave Iran without telling Sara, carrying his plan like a secret weight. Amir, a mutual friend who cares for both of them, senses what is coming and tries everything within his reach to change Navid's mind. But Navid's resolve has hardened beyond persuasion, and the space between the three of them fills with all the things no one is willing to say out loud. The film unfolds in a compressed, pressurized span of time, letting tension accumulate through glances and silences rather than confrontation.

The K-Time take

Nabi sustains an impressive economy of feeling across just twenty-two minutes, trusting long silences and restrained performances to carry emotional weight that a longer film might over-explain. The result is a short that feels genuinely complete — shaped, not simply truncated.

Cast & crew

Pouya Nabi directs with a careful hand, coaxing understatement from his three leads. Hesam Mahmoudi carries the moral weight of the conflicted Navid. Mohammad Reza Ghaffari plays Amir with a convincing mix of loyalty and helplessness. Neda Jebraeili brings a quiet dignity to Sara, a character defined as much by what she does not know as by what she feels.

Context & significance

Short films have long been a vital proving ground for Iranian cinema, where directors work within tight constraints to develop the observational, restrained style the industry is celebrated for internationally. Silent fits squarely in that tradition — intimate in scope, precise in emotional observation, and grounded in everyday domestic reality. For diaspora viewers, stories about the decision to leave Iran carry a particular resonance: the weight of emigration, the people left behind, and the relationships strained beyond repair by geography and silence are themes that echo widely in Iranian communities abroad. At twenty-two minutes, it is an ideal entry point for viewers discovering Iranian short cinema.

Where & how to watch

Silent is available on K-Time with original Persian audio. No VPN is needed and there is no geo-blocking — watch on the web, on your TV, or on your phone. Subscribe and cancel anytime.