The Deer

Gavaznha, released internationally as The Deer, is an Iranian drama from 1974. Masoud Kimiai wrote and directed it, Mehdi Missaghieh produced it, and it was made at the Misaghieh studio. Shot in black and white, it runs about 120 minutes and counts among the most popular Iranian films made before the 1979 revolution.

The story rests on an old friendship that revives under unexpected and strange circumstances. One of the roles went to Behrouz Vossoughi, regarded as the most famous Iranian male actor of the pre-revolutionary years. The cast also includes Garshasb Raoufi, Faramarz Qaribian, Mahbubeh Bayat, Parviz Fannizadeh, Mastaneh Jazayeri and Enayatollah Bakhshi.

Vossoughi won the best actor prize for it at the third Tehran International Film Festival, held in 1974. The film's later standing is strong too: in a 2002 vote among 55 Iranian film critics, Gavaznha shared the title of best film in Iranian cinema history with Bahram Beyzaie's Bashu, the Little Stranger, and Film magazine's polls in 2009 and 2019 reached the same verdict.