Director: Abbas Kiarostami
Cast: Homayoun Ershadi, Abdolrahman Bagheri, Afshin Khorshid Bakhtiari, Safar Ali Moradi, Mir Hossein Noori
Tame Gilas (Taste of Cherry) is a 1997 Iranian drama film directed by Abbas Kiarostami, following a middle-aged Tehran man who drives through the outskirts of the city in search of a stranger willing to perform one final, troubling act of human kindness for him.
What is Tame Gilas about?
Mr. Badii drives through the dusty hills on the edge of Tehran, stopping to recruit strangers for an unusual and deeply personal task: he wants someone to bury him after he ends his own life. His car becomes a confessional on wheels, and each passenger he picks up responds differently. A young Kurdish soldier recoils in shock. A seminarian from Afghanistan speaks of moral obligation. Only when Badii reaches an older taxidermist does he find someone willing to listen — and even willing to accept, though not without resistance. The taxidermist recounts the memory that once pulled him back from his own darkest moment: the simple, unexpected sweetness of a cherry picked at dawn.
The K-Time take
Kiarostami builds the film almost entirely from inside a car, letting conversation carry the weight of a philosophical inquiry into why human beings choose to remain alive. The restraint is deliberate and the pacing reflective, rewarding viewers willing to sit with the silences. The Palme d'Or win at Cannes in 1997 confirmed what audiences around the world were already sensing: that this is one of the essential works of world cinema.
Cast & crew
Director Abbas Kiarostami, the defining voice of the Iranian New Wave, keeps his camera intimate throughout. Homayoun Ershadi plays Mr. Badii with a quietly haunted restraint that anchors every scene. Abdolrahman Bagheri brings warmth and philosophical weight as the taxidermist whose story becomes the emotional heart of the film. The supporting cast — Afshin Khorshid Bakhtiari, Safar Ali Moradi, Mir Hossein Noori, and Ahmad Ansari — each delivers a distinct human register in brief but memorable appearances.
Context & significance
Tame Gilas holds a singular place in Iranian cinema and in world film history. Released in 1997, the year it shared the Palme d'Or at Cannes with Shohei Imamura's The Eel, it arrived at a moment when Iranian directors were reshaping global perceptions of what a film could be. For diaspora viewers, the landscape of Tehran's periphery — the dry hills, the construction sites, the men waiting by the roadside — carries the texture of memory. The film raises the oldest question in human experience through the simplest possible format: two people in a car, talking. It belongs to a lineage that includes Kiarostami's own Koker trilogy, but stands alone in its directness and its quietly radical final gesture.
Where & how to watch
Tame Gilas is available now on K-Time with original Persian audio. Watch it on your TV, laptop, or phone — no VPN needed, no geo-blocking, no extra download required. Start and cancel anytime.