Official Trailer for Acclaimed Doc 'Cutting Through Rocks' from Iran by Alex Billington October 22, 2025Source: YouTube "You all hav
Official Trailer for Acclaimed Doc ‘Cutting Through Rocks’ from Iran
by Alex Billington
October 22, 2025
Source: YouTube
“You all have the power to do anything.” Film Forum has unveiled the official US trailer for an acclaimed documentary film titled Cutting Through Rocks, made by the filmmakers Mohammadreza Eyni & Sara Khaki. This premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival earlier this year (listed as one of my favorite films at the fest) and it played at tons of other fests including Hot Docs, Visions du Réel, Edinburgh, Woodstock, Vancouver, and many others. As the first elected councilwoman of her Iranian village up in the north, Sara Shahverdi aims to break long-held patriarchal traditions by training teenage girls to ride motorcycles and stopping child marriages. When accusations arise questioning Sara’s intentions to empower all the girls, her identity is put in turmoil. But she fights back. A real, genuine badass and feminist hero – fighting for women and doing everything she can in her village. I’m a gigantic fan of this film – I wrote in my recap: “An empowering, inspiring story of perseverance & progress no matter the circumstances or the oppression.” Worth a watch.
Official US trailer for Mohammadreza Eyni & Sara Khaki’s doc Cutting Through Rocks, from YouTube:
Patriarchy still reigns in the northwestern Iranian village where 37-year-old Sara Shahverdi—divorced, childless, and an avid motorcyclist—became the first woman elected to city council. Wife and husband team Khaki and Eyni followed Shahverdi’s journey over eight years, tracking her inspiring, upstream efforts to subvert economic systems and transform local attitudes (of men and women alike) that destine girls to matrimony and dependence. A midwife and one of nine children, Sara is both deeply connected to the everyday lives of her fellow villagers and a radical lone voice advocating—at great personal cost—for education over marriage, home co-ownership, and girls on bikes. Cutting Through Rocks is a doc film co-directed and co-produced by the filmmakers Mohammadreza Eyni (of The Friend’s House, Convergence: Courage in a Crisis) & Sara Khaki (also of Convergence: Courage in a Crisis). This initially premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival earlier this year (read our review). Film Forum will debut Eyni & Khaki’s Cutting Through Rocks in select US theaters starting November 21st, 2025. Highly recommend this doc.
 |
COMMENTS