The Indian Gift

Known in Persian as Tohfe-ye Hend (تحفه هند), The Indian Gift is a comedy feature made in Iran in 1994 (1373 in the Solar Hijri calendar) and built on an old Persian folk tale. Mohammad Reza Zehtabi directed it from a screenplay by Hossein Iri and Mohammad-Reza Safavi, with Yadollah Shahidi, Abdollah Alikhani and Hossein Farah-Bakhsh credited as producers.

Shot in Persian and running roughly 78 minutes, the film gathers a broad ensemble around the popular comic actor Akbar Abdi, alongside Leila Mosaddeghi, Esmail Davarfar and Shahla Riahi. Two of its veteran players, Hamideh Kheirabadi and Morteza Ahmadi, were among the most familiar character actors of Iranian cinema.

No detailed and verifiable account of the plot has survived in accessible sources, so only the credits and cast are set out here. The film stands as one example of the folk-tale adaptations produced in Iran during the mid-1990s.