Cutting Through Rocks

As the first woman ever elected to the council of her small Iranian village, Sara Shahverdi aims to break long-held patriarchal traditions. She trains teenage girls to ride motorcycles, encourages them to pursue an education and tries to stop child marriages. But Sara’s resilience and combative style bring her many enemies – mostly men.  

In a remote village in the Northwest of Iran, Sara Shahverdi does what no woman has done before: she gets elected to the local council. Riding on her popularity as a village midwife, she leaves the other candidates – among whom her brother – far behind. As a self-assured, divorced woman, Sara’s election brings hope and optimism to the women and girls of the village. Fearlessly she spreads the lessons of her late father, who raised her to be a free woman – teaching her how to ride a motorcycle and letting her choose her own clothes.

‘You must see yourselves as doctors, teachers, engineers,’ Sara tells a class of schoolgirls, ‘so that you have power.’ But while she encourages the girls to continue their education first before thinking about marriage, the patriarchy in the village responds with hostility and intimidation. The pressures build when Sara takes young Fereshteh into her home, who tries to escape the marriage she was forced into at 12. When Sara’s very being is called into question, she is increasingly forced to fight her battles alone.

Cutting Through Rocks has been nominated for an Oscar in the category ‘Documentary Feature’.