Hezardastan

Hezardastan also known as Hezar Dastan, was an Iranian epic historical drama television series from 1987, developed and directed by Ali Hatami. Hezar Dastan is considered one of the most important and most influential works of art in the history of Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting. The show's story, characters, acting, style, and music were highly acclaimed by critics and fellow directors of the time, and the influence of the show's themes and story can be seen in Iranian popular culture as well as many works of art coming in later years. The production of the show took almost 8 years, starting in 1979 and ending in 1987, during which Hatami established a large set to represent Tehran in both Qajar dynasty and World War II, retroactively creating Iran's first movie studio and backlot (named Ghazali Cinema Town). The show was the ground for many controversies in terms of censorship and changes in the story. In 2006, Hezar Dastan was voted by the Association of Iranian movies and TV critics as the best Iranian TV series ever made. Plot The story is split into two different timelines. The events of World War II and Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran is where the main narrative takes place, but a great deal of the story is told through flashbacks to the last days of Qajar dynasty by Reza Khoshnevis. Qazarian jewelry shop is robbed by Moffatesh Shesh Angoshti (Davoud Rashidi) during an official census by the government, following a direct order by Reza Shah Pahlavi. As a result of this robbery, a set of jewelry that belonged to Khan-e-Mozaffar's daughter-in-law, Amineh Aghdas (Zahra Hatami) went missing. Khan -e- Mozaffar (Ezzatolah Entezami), a mysterious aristocrat who used to be the governor of Kerman when Ahmad Shah Qajar was in power but has taken full-time residence in The Grand Hotel in Laleh-Zar Street of Tehran, asks the Head of Shahrbani (Jafar Vali) to locate the missing jewels. So the Head of Shahrbani assigns Moffatesh to find the set of jewelry. Moffatesh searches his cache of stolen jewels, but realizes the missing jewels are not among them. So he suspects that the jewels must be among the ones that are sold to an unnamed Princess (Afsar Asadi). Moffatesh then conspires to have Shaban Ostekhani (Mohammad-Ali Keshavarz) interrupt the premiere of Lor Girl so that he can steal the jewels from The Princess in the chaos. But after showing them to Amineh Aghdas it is revealed that the jewels that were taken from The Princess are not the right ones.