Introduction: This study investigates how Iranian prisoners interpret and decode the film Dehliz (directed by Behrouz Shoaibi, 2013), a notable example of social cinema that explores the intertwined themes of retribution, forgiveness, and the impact of imprisonment on family relationships. The research is rooted in the growing field of audience studies within Iranian cultural research, which has rarely examined marginalized or institutionalized audiences such as prisoners. The central aim of this study is to understand how prisoners, as an audience with lived experience of incarceration, engage with cinematic representations of prison life and moral decision-making.

Drawing on Stuart Hall’s encoding/decoding model, the study situates itself within the cultural studies tradition, viewing meaning not as a fixed property of the text but as the product of active interpretation by audiences. In Iranian cinema, particularly films dealing with moral conflict and punishment, the question of how audiences negotiate meanings around justice, compassion, and family has sociocultural significance. This research therefore contributes to filling a critical gap in the sociology of Iranian cinema by examining how prisoners read a film that indirectly mirrors their social and emotional conditions.

Methods: The study employed a qualitative, audience-based approach using focus group discussions. Four focus groups, comprising twenty inmates in total, were organized in Sari Central Prison in winter 2013 following a collective screening of the film. Participants were selected through purposive sampling to represent a diversity of age, crime type, sentence length, and educational background. Each group session lasted between 60 and 90 minutes and was guided by semi-structured questions designed to elicit personal interpretations, emotional reactions, and reflections on moral and familial themes.

Data were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed through interpretive thematic analysis. The process involved open, axial, and selective coding to identify recurrent patterns of meaning. Reliability was enhanced through inter-coder comparison and member checking. Ethical considerations were carefully observed, including informed consent, confidentiality, and voluntary participation. The analysis was guided by Hall’s tripartite framework—hegemonic, negotiated, and oppositional readings—allowing systematic classification of the prisoners’ interpretations while remaining attentive to contextual nuances in their responses.

Results: Findings reveal that the prisoners’ readings of Dehliz were diverse and layered, reflecting their complex moral positions and emotional experiences. Three major types of readings were identified:

1. Hegemonic reading: A group of participants accepted the film’s moral messages about anger control, family loyalty, and the possibility of redemption. They empathized with the protagonist’s emotional struggles and interpreted the film as an ethical lesson consistent with religious and social norms.

2. Negotiated reading: Another group partially accepted the film’s messages but simultaneously questioned its realism. They appreciated the film’s call for forgiveness but emphasized that actual prison life was harsher and less forgiving. For them, the film offered an idealized version of incarceration that contrasted sharply with their lived reality.

3. Oppositional reading: A third group rejected the film’s portrayal of prison life as unrealistic and ideologically biased. They perceived the narrative as sanitizing the power relations, violence, and deprivation experienced in real prisons. For these participants, the film reinforced social stereotypes about prisoners as morally redeemable only through external forgiveness rather than structural justice.

Across all groups, the act of decoding was mediated by the prisoners’ identities as fathers, sons, and husbands. The film’s family-centered narrative prompted reflections on loss, guilt, and the desire for reconciliation, demonstrating that audience interpretation is deeply intertwined with personal and emotional experience.

Discussion: The study demonstrates that prisoners’ interpretations of Dehliz transcend the fixed categories of Hall’s model and reveal a continuum of readings shaped by lived experience, emotional memory, and moral reasoning. The boundaries between hegemonic, negotiated, and oppositional positions were often fluid, as participants simultaneously identified with and resisted the film’s moral and ideological codes. This hybridity of decoding highlights the need to rethink audience studies in Iran beyond traditional, text-centered approaches and to recognize how social position and institutional context mediate meaning-making.

From a sociological perspective, the research shows that the cinematic representation of prison in Dehliz operates as a cultural text through which broader discourses of morality, punishment, and social reintegration are negotiated. The prisoners’ responses reveal both the emotional power of cinema as a space for reflection and its limitations in addressing structural realities. By engaging directly with a marginalized audience, the study contributes to developing a localized understanding of media reception that considers the interplay between ideology, identity, and affect.

In conclusion, this research underlines the potential of social cinema in Iran not merely as moral storytelling but as a dialogical medium capable of generating ethical and psychological engagement among socially excluded groups. It also calls for more realistic and pluralistic representations of incarceration in Iranian film and invites policymakers to recognize the educational and rehabilitative potential of cinema within correctional environments.