Director: Ali Mosaffa
Cast: Homayoun Ershadi, Leila Hatami
Sima'ye Zani dar Door Dast is a 2005 Iranian drama film directed by Ali Mosaffa, starring Homayoun Ershadi and Leila Hatami. The film follows an aging, solitary engineer whose quiet, withdrawn life is suddenly disrupted by a desperate phone call from a stranger on the edge of despair.
What is Sima'ye Zani dar Door Dast about?
Retired and living in near-complete isolation, an older engineer spends his days in silence — estranged from his wife and adult son, largely cut off from the world. One evening, the phone rings. A woman he has never met tells him she intends to end her life. What begins as an unexpected intrusion becomes an urgent, morally loaded conversation across distance. The man must decide how to respond — whether to engage, to reach out, or to withdraw back into his solitude — and this single night forces him to confront everything he has allowed himself to forget about human connection, responsibility, and the cost of emotional absence.
Cast & crew
Director Ali Mosaffa — himself a respected Iranian actor and filmmaker — brings a restrained, interior sensibility to the story. Homayoun Ershadi, best known internationally for his role in Abbas Kiarostami's Taste of Cherry, anchors the film with quiet authority. Leila Hatami, one of Iran's most acclaimed screen presences, provides the film's urgent emotional core as the voice on the phone.
Context & significance
Iranian cinema in the early 2000s was rich with introspective, dialogue-driven works that placed ordinary people in quietly extraordinary moral situations — a tradition rooted in filmmakers like Kiarostami and Farhadi. Sima'ye Zani dar Door Dast fits squarely within this lineage: a film built on conversation, on what is left unsaid, and on the weight of estrangement. For diaspora viewers who have navigated the emotional distances of migration — from family, from language, from homeland — this story of a man alone with a voice on a telephone carries a particular resonance. It asks what we owe to strangers, and what silence does to us over time.
Where & how to watch
Sima'ye Zani dar Door Dast is available on K-Time with original Persian audio. Watch on your browser, TV, or phone — no VPN required, no geo-blocking, no extra download needed. Subscription is flexible; cancel anytime.