Director: Abbas Kiarostami
Cast: Sirous Hassanpour
Zange Tafrih is a 1972 Iranian short drama film directed by Abbas Kiarostami, made during his early years at the Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults (Kanoon). Running just fourteen minutes, it captures a child's impulsive moment and its cascading consequences with quiet precision.
What is Zange Tafrih about?
A schoolboy's afternoon goes sideways when an errant kick sends his football straight through a neighbour's glass window. Rattled and afraid to face the repercussions, he slips away — only to spot a ball belonging to a group of older boys and seize it in a moment of desperation. The older kids give chase, and what started as a simple accident spirals into a scrambling flight through the streets. Kiarostami keeps the camera close to the child's point of view, letting the audience feel every surge of guilt, fear, and adrenaline without a word of adult explanation. The film ends before any tidy resolution arrives, trusting the viewer to sit with the moral weight.
Cast & crew
Abbas Kiarostami, who went on to international acclaim for films such as Close-Up and Taste of Cherry, was still building his signature style when he made this short at Kanoon. Lead performer Sirous Hassanpour carries nearly the entire film on screen, conveying a child's internal conflict through movement and expression rather than dialogue.
Context & significance
Made inside the Kanoon system that nurtured some of Iran's most important postwar cinema, Zange Tafrih belongs to a tradition of Iranian films that take children seriously as moral subjects rather than cute props. For diaspora viewers who grew up with Persian-language short films in school or on state television, this title carries a distinct nostalgic texture. It also offers a window into pre-revolution Tehran's everyday street life — a world of neighbourhood kids, broken windows, and consequences that felt enormous when you were small. Kiarostami would return again and again to the ethical predicaments of children, and this short is one of the earliest, most compact expressions of that obsession.
Where & how to watch
Zange Tafrih is available on K-Time with original Persian audio. No VPN is needed and there is no geo-blocking — watch on the web browser, your TV, or your phone. Cancel your membership anytime.