Director: Arsalan Amiri
Cast: Navid Pourfaraj, Pouria Rahimi Sam, Hoda Zeinolabedin, Fereydoun Hamedi, Shahoo Rostami
Zalava is a 2023 Iranian drama-horror-thriller directed by Arsalan Amiri, set in a remote Kurdish village where a clash between rational skepticism and deep-rooted folk belief spirals into something far more unsettling than either side is prepared to face.
What is Zalava about?
A provincial police officer stationed near a Kurdish mountain village responds to an emergency: the community is gripped by collective terror, convinced that a malevolent spirit has taken hold among them. The officer, a committed atheist, dismisses the panic as superstition and sets his sights on exposing the local exorcist — a man the villagers revere and the officer regards as a calculating con artist. As the officer pushes to dismantle the ritual, the boundary between social control and genuine fear begins to blur. Suspicion spreads through the village, old loyalties fracture, and the line separating reason from hysteria grows surprisingly thin. Neither side is entirely right, and neither is entirely safe.
Cast & crew
Director Arsalan Amiri, making his feature debut, assembled a cast drawn largely from Kurdish-speaking talent. Navid Pourfaraj leads as the skeptical officer, bringing a controlled, pressure-cooker intensity to every confrontation. Pouria Rahimi Sam plays the exorcist opposite him, and Hoda Zeinolabedin rounds out the principal trio. Supporting players including Fereydoun Hamedi, Shahoo Rostami, and Baset Rezaei ground the village community in felt, lived detail.
Context & significance
Zalava premiered at the Venice Film Festival and marked one of the most internationally discussed Iranian genre films of its era — rare for a Persian production to lean so fully into horror conventions while keeping its social commentary sharp and grounded in the specificities of rural Iranian life. For diaspora viewers, the film is quietly layered: the tension between the secular state apparatus and traditional community belief systems will feel familiar in ways that exceed simple folklore. Shot in the Kurdish highlands with non-studio naturalism, Zalava works as an allegory about authority, doubt, and what happens when two incompatible worldviews are forced into the same small space.
Where & how to watch
Zalava is available on K-Time in its original Persian and Kurdish audio. Watch on the web, on your TV, or on your phone — no VPN needed, no geo-blocking, cancel anytime.