Cutting Through Rocks: "we... mirrored both the production & the person we were following. It was a mirrored journey, & it made us even more determined to tell this story"

In this Hopeful Conversation, filmmaker and host Vanessa Hope speaks with Oscar-nominated directing duo Sara Khaki and Mohammadreza Eyni about their acclaimed documentary Cutting Through Rocks, which follows Sara Shahverdi, the first woman elected to a rural village council in northwestern Iran, and the ways her leadership reshapes her community’s ideas about gender, power, and possibility. Together they unpack their long-term vérité process over seven years of filming, the trust-building that allowed such intimate access, and the evolving themes of visibility, child marriage, and education that emerged as they followed Sara’s bond with her father, her motorcycle, and the young girls who see her as a role model. They also discuss how their own love story unfolded during production, how state pressure and gender-policing shaped both their subject’s life and their ability to work, and why Cutting Through Rocks resonates with audiences worldwide at a moment of backlash against women’s rights, even as the film struggles to find sustainable distribution in the current cinema ecosystem. Get full access to Dream of a Better World at vanessahope.substack.com/subscribe