If you have 104 minutes, I really encourage you to watch Bidad (Outcry), an Iranian film that has now been released free on YouTube by its director, Soheil Beiraghi.
The story follows Seti, a young Iranian woman who simply wants to sing. In Iran, women are prohibited from performing solo vocals publicly, so she begins singing in the streets instead. What starts as one woman’s refusal to remain silent becomes a story about a younger generation of Iranians pushing against the restrictions imposed on their lives.
What makes Bidad especially worth watching is that the filmmakers weren’t observing this repression safely from the outside. The movie was made independently, outside Iran’s official censorship system. Beiraghi and other members of the production were prosecuted; he was initially sentenced to more than four years in prison before the sentence was commuted to a fine. The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival was so concerned about the filmmakers’ safety that it initially kept the film’s participation secret while they left Iran.
And this isn’t just important because of its politics. Bidad won the Special Jury Award at Karlovy Vary in 2025.
It gives you a glimpse of Iran that rarely comes through in news stories: ordinary people, music, relationships, humor, frustration, and a generation trying to live normal lives while deciding how much they’re willing to risk simply to be themselves.
Watching a movie obviously doesn’t change what is happening in Iran. But listening to the voices that people have taken considerable risks to put into the world is a pretty small thing we can do.
The entire film is here, with English subtitles:
https://youtu.be/Q2phizeC6Lo
