Review: Cutting Through Rocks
- Sara Khaki and Mohammadreza Eyni’s hard-hitting doc follows the first elected councilwoman in a rural Iranian village, as she attempts to dismantle deeply rooted patriarchal structures

In Cutting Through Rocks, Iranian filmmakers Sara Khaki and Mohammadreza Eyni deliver a deeply intimate and quietly defiant portrait of resistance and resilience. Their debut feature documentary follows Sara Shahverdi, the first elected councilwoman in a rural Iranian village, as she attempts to dismantle deeply rooted patriarchal structures and empower young women to imagine a future of freedom, education, and autonomy. Premiering at Sundance and scooping the Grand Jury Prize of the World Cinema Documentary Competition earlier this year, the film took home the Gex Doc Prize at the Giffoni Film Festival last week.
At the heart of Cutting Through Rocks lies Shahverdi herself—a remarkable, trailblazing figure who drives a car through dusty village roads, teaches teenage girls how to ride motorbikes, and campaigns against the still-prevalent practice of child marriage. The camera, handheld and unvarnished, stays close to her, never interfering but always alert to the emotional and political weight of her daily struggles. It’s this raw, observational approach that lends the film its quiet power and cumulative tension.
Sara’s charisma and sheer willpower drive the narrative forward. As she pushes girls to stay in school, dream of careers in medicine, teaching, or engineering, and take control of their lives, her vision becomes a glimmer of hope in an otherwise suffocating social landscape. Yet her journey is far from smooth. Suspicion and resentment surround her. When allegations surface questioning her intentions with the young girls she mentors, Sara’s own identity is scrutinised and eventually attacked. In a particularly harrowing twist, a judge even questions her gender identity, seemingly as a tactic to discredit her and halt her work.
One of the film’s most affecting sequences captures a rare moment of joy and freedom: Sara, leading a convoy of girls on motorbikes, drives ahead in her white car. It’s a liberating image, fleeting and almost light-hearted. But the spell is broken when one of the girls is confronted and slapped by her uncle on the roadside. Sara rushes to intervene, her authority challenged once again. These juxtapositions—between lightness and violence, empowerment and repression—define the film’s rhythm.
The score, used sparingly and with subtlety, enhances rather than overwhelms the emotional arc. The cinematography, rough-edged and organic, resists beautification, echoing the rawness of the terrain and the social tensions that run through it. Cutting Through Rocks begins with quiet observation, but builds into an emotional crescendo, culminating in a series of painful defeats and existential questions.
By the film’s conclusion, the reality on the ground is stark: more and more girls are pulled into arranged and underage marriages. Sara, increasingly isolated, asks herself, “Who will heal this pain?” It’s not a rhetorical question but a desperate cry—a recognition of the asymmetry of the struggle. Her efforts, while inspiring, falter against a system too entrenched to budge. The film does not offer closure or easy hope, and therein lies its honesty. This is not a tale of triumphant change, but one of necessary resistance in the face of insurmountable odds.
Ultimately, the documentary stands as both a testament to individual courage and a sobering wake-up call. It reminds us that even the most extraordinary individuals can only go so far when systems are designed to suppress them—and that some wounds, personal and collective, may be too deep to heal.
Cutting Through Rocks was produced by Gandom Films (Iran) and co-produced with inselfilm (Germany), IDFA’s Bertha Fund (Netherlands), Chicken & Egg (USA), the Doha Film Institute (Qatar), P-Squared Philanthropies (USA), Meadow Fund (USA), Film Estudios (Chile), and Hot Docs Lab (Canada). Austria’s Autlook Filmsales is in charge of its international sales.
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