Synopsis

Autumn, 1941. Tehran is occupied by the Allied forces during World War Two. Reza Khan has abdicated from the throne, and Prime Minister Forughi has taken the new king to the parliament in order to introduce him to his duties as a constitutional monarch.

Soldiers have deserted the barracks, and chaos reigns in towns and cities. The circumstances would seem to be offering an old calligrapher excellent opportunities for settling an old score with a powerful man who had destroyed the calligrapher's youth...



"I was seven years old when the Allied forces arrived in Iran. I remember we used to hang around the neighborhood corners and say hello to foreign soldiers who gave us chewing gums. All those childhood memories were revived for me when I arrived in the Cinema City on the first day of shooting Hezardastan. I would sit down to watch my colleagues perform and simultaneously I reminisced about the past.

The character of the security police, played by Jahanguir Foruhar, in particular reminded me of a man I had known as a child. He would ride in a coach with a great deal of pomposity." - Jamshid Mashayekhi

Director, screenwriter: Ali Hatami
Producer: Mohammad Mehdi Dadgou
Photography: Mehrdad Fakhimi, Maziar Parto
Music: Morteza Hannaneh
Editing: Varuzh Karim Massihi
Art Director: Hatami
Sound Mix: Mohammad Haqiqi, Changuiz Sayyad
Make-up Artists: Abdollah Eskandari, Jalal Mo'ayerian

Cast: Jamshid Mashayekhi, Ezzatolah Entezami, Davoud Rashidi, Mohammad Ali Keshavarz, Zahra Hatami (Zari Khoshkam), Shahla Mir-Bakhtiar, Jahanguir Forouhar, Rogheyeh Chehreh-Azad, Jafar Vali, Mansour Valamagham, Jamshid Layegh, Mohamad Motie, Esmail Mohammadi, Nematollah Gorji, Mohammad Varshochi, Afsar Asadi, Manoochehr Azari, Mahmoud Basiri, Mir Salah Hosseini, Soroosh Khalili, Esmaeel Mehrabi, Shahla Mir Bakhtiar, Shaban Ranginvand, Hossein Shahab, Hamed Tahassoni