Director: Sepideh Mirhosseini

Cast: Bahram Abbasifard, Bardia Moeini, Farzaneh Ghasemi

Zemestan Ast is a 2017 Iranian short film directed by Sepideh Mirhosseini, running fourteen minutes. Set against the quiet chill of winter, it observes three family members moving through the same shared space yet feeling utterly distant from one another — a spare, precise portrait of domestic estrangement.

What is Zemestan Ast about?

A father, a mother, and their child occupy the same household, yet each exists in a separate emotional world. Warmth has drained from their interactions, replaced by silence, avoidance, and routines carried out side by side without real contact. Mirhosseini uses restrained visuals and unhurried pacing to show how coldness accumulates in a family — not through dramatic argument, but through what goes unsaid, unshared, and unfelt. The title, meaning 'It Is Winter,' frames the emotional climate rather than the physical season: a state that has settled into the household without anyone choosing it.

Cast & crew

Director Sepideh Mirhosseini crafts her short with measured restraint, drawing low-key performances from a trio of actors. Bahram Abbasifard, Bardia Moeini, and Farzaneh Ghasemi carry the film largely through gesture and presence rather than dialogue, sustaining a naturalistic register that suits the subject's quietness throughout the fourteen-minute runtime.

Context & significance

Short films occupy a distinctive space in Iranian cinema — a tradition that has long nurtured filmmakers who later move into features. Mirhosseini's Zemestan Ast belongs to that lineage of intimate domestic studies that use the confined family unit to examine silence, disconnection, and unspoken grief. For the diaspora, stories of family coldness carry particular weight: the experience of displacement often sharpens the awareness of what holds — or no longer holds — people together. This film asks no dramatic question; it simply observes, and in that observation recognizes something universally familiar about how families can drift apart while sharing the same four walls.

Where & how to watch

Zemestan Ast is available on K-Time with original Persian audio. Stream it on the web, on your television, or on your phone — no VPN needed, no geo-blocking, no extra download. Watch at any time and cancel anytime.