This Is Our Story | Voices From Iran's January Protests Season 1 Episode release dates & where to watch

1. The City Stops

In the first eleven days of the protests, from 28 December 2025 to 7 January 2026, Iranians took to the streets in towns and cities across the country. This is their story. It begins in Tehran's bazaar, where the sharp fall of the rial brought people onto the streets. Over the following days the protests spread across Iran. They took hold first in many smaller towns and cities before growing in scale and reaching some of the country's major cities. Anger over the economic crisis soon became something much broader. The episode follows the people who took to the streets in those early days, the growing unrest and the crackdown that had already begun. Many showed extraordinary courage, often far from the attention of the outside world, and their stories were soon overshadowed by the scale of what happened on 8 and 9 January — 18 and 19 Dey. Episode One tells the story of those who were already on the streets, and of the days that prepared the ground for what was to come.

2. The Night of Hope

On 8 January 2026 — 18 Dey — following a call to action by Prince Reza Pahlavi, people took to the streets across Iran. This is the story of that day. From Tehran and other major cities to towns across the country, demonstrations spread to almost every corner of Iran. Many left their homes not knowing how many others would join them, or what they would find when they reached the streets. What followed went beyond expectations. Huge crowds gathered in cities across the country, in one of the most widespread protests Iran has seen. As the crowds grew, so did the response from the authorities. Footage recorded by people on the streets captured what followed: confrontations, gunfire, the wounded, and mounting evidence of the violence used against protesters. Episode Two documents that day through the images and voices of those who were there. It was a day shaped by the scale of the protests, the hope that brought people onto the streets, and the force used against them.

3. Kahrizak

On 9 January 2026 — 19 Dey — Iranians returned to the streets for a second day of protest. As the crackdown intensified, families searched for those who never came home. Hope still drew large crowds nationwide. But the crackdown continued, leaving some of the most disturbing images of violence against protesters in Iran’s recent history. Under an internet blackout, people used phones to record what they saw: the scale of the crackdown in streets, makeshift clinics and hospitals, and the hours after. Some clips capture the sound of gunfire and shouting as crowds scatter. Other footage shows wounded people being carried into clinics and homes. Then came the search. Families went from hospital to morgue, seeking relatives who went out on 8 and 9 January and never returned. At Kahrizak, they faced rows of bodies. Episode Three gathers footage Iranians recorded themselves—evidence of what happened on the streets and what families found when they searched for those who did not come home.

4. Fourty Days

After the crackdown of 8 and 9 January 2026, families across Iran searched for loved ones who never came home. Then came funerals, and forty days later, memorials. The search continued as more bodies arrived at Kahrizak, hospitals and mortuaries. Footage offers only a glimpse: families searching among bodies, parents calling their children’s names, shock at the scale of what happened. Then came funerals, and a different struggle. Families’ defiance took many forms. They danced amid grief, called loved ones heroes, and spoke proudly of those they said gave their lives for their homeland. Mourning became more than farewell—a way of keeping alive their names, hopes, and the cause that brought them onto the streets. Forty days later, that defiance had not faded. The final episode of This Is Our Story follows that journey—from the desperate search for those who never came home, through burial and mourning, to the forty-day memorials where grief, remembrance and defiance continued.