WRESTLING WITH IRAN is the true, first-person journey of Jahangir Golestan-Parast, an award-winning documentary filmmaker who was born and raised in Iran and has lived in the United States for over 30 years. Jahangir refuses to accept that these two nations must remain enemies forever. Armed with nothing but love for both countries and an unshakable belief in people, he set out to showcase the sport of wrestling and how it brings the United States and Iran together.

What he found on the mat will stay with you long after the film ends. An American champion and an Iranian competitor, fierce rivals seconds earlier, walking off together arm in arm. No politics. No borders. Just two people who looked each other in the eye and saw a brother.

This is the story of the zurkhaneh, Iran’s ancient House of Strength, where the strongest men in the room are taught to bow the lowest. Where power means nothing without humility, and victory means nothing without respect. It is a side of Iran the world is almost never allowed to see.

Right now, no film offers a real pathway to peace for the conflict tearing these nations apart. WRESTLING WITH IRAN fills that silence with a message so simple it is easy to forget: that compassion and understanding are not weakness. They are the only thing that has ever ended a war for good.

We do not know how this conflict will end. But we know that when the fighting stops, someone will have to rebuild what was broken between these two peoples. This film is where that work begins. One handshake. One match. One human being recognizing another.