Director: Iman Yazdi
Cast: Hamed Ahangi, Ahmad Mehranfar, Anahita Dargahi, Siavash Cheraghipour, Pejman Jamshidi
Tehran 57 is a 2025 Iranian comedy-adventure film directed by Iman Yazdi, set in the final years before the revolution when a fictionalized young Donald Trump arrives in Iran with two famous Hollywood companions, determined to build a casino in the north — and unwittingly upending the lives of ordinary Tehranis who cross his path.
What is Tehran 57 about?
When a brash American businessman lands in Tehran with grand ambitions and two celebrity friends in tow, the city is caught off-guard. Khosrow, an opportunistic local, sees his moment: through his buddy Parviz — who happens to be the group's Persian translator — he positions himself to become the American's business partner in a glitzy casino venture up north. What begins as a seemingly simple hustle quickly spirals into a chain of mishaps, misunderstandings, and escalating chaos. Neither Khosrow nor Parviz is prepared for the unpredictable personalities they're dealing with, nor for the unexpected turns that await them around every corner of a city on the edge of history.
Cast & crew
The film is directed by Iman Yazdi and features an ensemble that includes Hamed Ahangi and Ahmad Mehranfar in central roles, alongside Anahita Dargahi, Siavash Cheraghipour, Pejman Jamshidi, Maryam Saadat, Yousef Sayadi, and Saeid Salemi. The cast brings broad comedic range to a story that relies on timing and ensemble chemistry.
Context & significance
For the Iranian diaspora, Tehran 57 occupies a peculiar and affectionate space: a satirical comedy set in the pre-revolution era, mining the cultural memory of a Tehran that older generations remember vividly and younger generations know only through family stories. The film's premise — a fictionalized Trump scheming to open a casino in northern Iran alongside Hollywood-adjacent figures — plays as absurdist farce on a chapter of Iranian history that still carries enormous weight. This kind of retro-comic genre, common in Iranian cinema, uses nostalgia as its stage and larger-than-life foreign characters as its comedic foil, letting the audience laugh at both the audacity of the premise and the very Iranian instinct to hustle and adapt. For viewers far from home, the Tehran of 1978–79 is almost mythological — and films like this, however irreverent, keep that world alive and accessible.
Where & how to watch
Tehran 57 is available on K-Time with Persian subtitles. You can stream it on the web, on your TV, or on your phone — no VPN needed, no geo-blocking, and you can cancel anytime.