Director: Mohammad Motevaselani
Cast: Behrouz Vossoughi, Jamshid Mashayekhi, Enayat Bakhshi, Morteza Ahmadi, Parvin Solaymani
Zabih is a 1975 Iranian drama film directed by Mohammad Motevaselani, starring Behrouz Vossoughi in the lead role. Set against the backdrop of provincial Iran, it follows a man emerging from fifteen years of imprisonment to reclaim what remains of his shattered world — a story of loyalty, loss, and the passage of time.
What is Zabih about?
After spending fifteen years behind bars for a killing he committed to protect the woman he loved, Zabih walks free into an Iran that has moved on without him. Aghdas, the woman at the center of his sacrifice, was pregnant when he was taken away, and somewhere out there a child grew up not knowing his father. Zabih returns to his hometown driven by a single purpose: to find them. What greets him is not the reunion he imagined but a tangled web of changed lives, unspoken debts, and the quiet devastation of time. The film traces his search with unflinching honesty, asking whether loyalty forged in violence can ever truly be repaid.
Cast & crew
Behrouz Vossoughi, one of pre-revolution Iranian cinema's most commanding screen presences, brings a weathered gravity to Zabih. Jamshid Mashayekhi, Enayat Bakhshi, Morteza Ahmadi, Parvin Solaymani, and Jalal Pishvaian round out a cast drawn from the era's finest stage and screen talent, grounding the film in authentic mid-century Persian character work.
Context & significance
Released in 1975, Zabih belongs to the golden decade of Iranian populist drama — a period when filmmakers explored working-class masculinity, codes of honour, and the collision between personal loyalty and social consequence. For diaspora audiences, films like this carry a dual weight: they are windows into a vanished Iran and mirrors of values — gheyrat, sacrifice, family obligation — that survived emigration. Motevaselani's direction keeps sentimentality in check, letting Vossoughi's physicality carry the emotional freight. Watching Zabih today is partly an act of cultural archaeology and partly a reminder that the human hunger for belonging crosses every border.
Where & how to watch
Zabih is available on K-Time with original Persian audio. No VPN is required and there is no geo-blocking — you can stream on your TV, web browser, or phone from anywhere in the world. Membership can be cancelled anytime.