Cutting Through Rocks: An Iranian Woman Runs for Office

Iran has neither the equivalent of Emily’s List or the Susan B. Anthony List. Women candidates are not merely rare. They are unheard of. That meant Sara Shahverdi’s election to her local council was a really big deal. However, if you think that was the end of the story, then you must be dangerously naïve. Sara Khaki & Mohammadreza Eyni document Shahverdi’s campaign and the campaign after the campaign in Cutting Through Rocks, which opens this Friday in New York.

Shahverdi is tough, because her beloved father deliberately raised her to be a tomboy. Nevertheless, she obediently married—and then rebelliously divorced. That was a scandal, but she still earned much of her village’s trust as a notary, who regularly helped her customers navigate red tape. Thanks to her clients, many of whom were women voting for the first time, Shaverdi was elected, along with her younger brother.

She was true to her promises, spearheading a major project connecting the village houses to the natural gas grid. However, to qualify for the program, home-owners needed to present a legal title. Most households lacked such paperwork. Shahverdi could help in this respect, but only if the men granted their wives partial ownership.

This ignited a war of a ferocity that caught Shahverdi by surprise. To make matters worse, her own brother did not necessarily have her back. Shockingly, Shahverdi finds herself defending her identity as a woman, facing an involuntary re-assignment, pending review by state doctors.

Cutting Through Rocks is the kind of film that completely undermines a lot of “progressive” illusions regarding the Islamist world. If believe you can declare your own gender, don’t travel to Iran, because the regime considers that their job. Likewise, Shaverdi’s struggle to advance women’s rights takes one step forward and then one step backward. She successfully arranges ownership stakes for many vulnerable older women, but her efforts to discourage arranged child marriages literally ends in tears.

Shahverdi has a strong personality, but Khaki and Eyni show her pushed to her limits. Honestly, this doc is a surprisingly rough viewing experience—not because of physical violence, but due to the emotional trauma. Yet, there is no question it captures reality as it truly is for Shahverdi and any modern thinking provincial Iranian who dares to question the state-approved orthodoxy.

Cutting Through Rocks also has a grungy look, but that attests to its authenticity. The word “unvarnished” applies in just about every sense. At one minute, it seems rather pedestrian, whereas the next minute might be deeply shocking. That is a heck of a way to go through life—and indeed Shahverdi finds it exhausting. Highly recommended for the integrity of the film and its subject, Cutting Through Rocks opens this Friday (11/21) at Film Forum.