A rape/revenge story which turns into the defiance of state power when the lone hero (played by superstar Behrouz Vossoughi) takes the law into his own hands and challenges the established order. A monumental film often attributed to the Iranian New Wave, Qeysar in fact takes inspiration from the classical cinema favored by Kimiai, as well as Iranian popular films, but in the process marries them to politically conscious modern cinema. Kimiai's art in this, his second feature, lies in relocating the mise-en-scene of his favorite Hollywood filmmakers (including Fred Zinnemann) to underprivileged neighborhoods of Tehran.

Kaveh Abbasian is a scholar, filmmaker, and lecturer in Film and Media Practice at the University of Kent. Kaveh’s research is mainly concerned with exilic and refugee filmmaking, Kurdish cinema, and Iranian sacred defense film culture. He is the former director of programming for the London Kurdish Film Festival.