Skip to main content
Cutting Through Rocks film image; person riding a motorcycle backlit by a sunset

Cutting Through Rocks

اوزاک یوللار

Insights

This event has passed

Midwife by trade, motorcyclist by rebellion, and politician by defiance, Sara Shahverdi is a force unlike any her village has seen. In a remote part of northwestern Iran, Sara is the first woman elected to her local council, but it’s after the ballots have been counted that her true revolution begins. Fighting for women’s freedoms, she sparks a fire that stirs admiration, but also doubt — and opposition.

Winner of Sundance’s World Cinema Documentary Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award at Visions du Réel, Cutting Through Rocks is a vérité feat by directors Sara Khaki and Mohammadreza Eyni, filmed over seven years with patient, razor-sharp clarity. The camera walks beside Shahverdi — not to frame her as a martyr, but to illuminate the quiet, daily acts of resistance that define her. What emerges is a landscape where tradition and transformation collide, solidarity can flicker and fade, and the cost of progress is exacted in shadows. This is not just a portrait — it’s a reckoning with the risks of dreaming aloud.

 

Grand Jury Prize: World Cinema Documentary Competition, Sundance 2025

 

Media Partner

Tyee logo

Community Partner

     

Directors
Credits
Country of Origin

Iran/Netherlands/USA/
Germany/Qatar/Chile/Canada

Year

2025

Language

In Azeri Turkish and Farsi with English subtitles

Film Contact
Links
Content Warning

Sexual violence, child abuse, gender or sexual discrimination, domestic violence

18+
95 min
Award Winners Documentary Family Relations Human Rights & Social Justice Women Directors
Gandom Films Production LLC

Book Tickets

This event has passed.

Credits & Director

Executive Producer

Meadow Fund, Rebecca Lichtenfeld, Judith Helfand, Julie Parker Benello, Sheila Nevins

Producer

Mohammadreza Eyni, Sara Khaki

Cinematography

Mohammadreza Eyni

Editor

Sara Khaki, Mohammadreza Eyni

Original Music

Karim Sebastian Elias

Sara Khaki headshot

Sara Khaki سارا خاکی

Sara Khaki is a director, producer, and editor with a dedication to stories about gender equity. Her co-directed film, Our Iranian Lockdown (2020), was nominated for an IDA Award, and she contributed to the Emmy-nominated Netflix Original documentary feature Convergence (2022). A Chicken & Egg Films and Sundance alumni, Sara’s 2025 documentary Cutting Through Rocks won the Grand Jury Award in the World Cinema Documentary category at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. She is a co-founder of Gandom Films Production L.L.C., a US-based company that collaborates with top industry professionals to create socially engaging films.

Filmography: Facing the Mirror (2012); Our Iranian Lockdown (2020)

 

Mohammadreza Eyni headshot

Mohammadreza Eyni محمدرضا عینی

Mohammadreza Eyni is a director, producer, and cinematographer whose cinematic approach bridges boundaries and elevates underrepresented voices. A co-founder of Gandom Films Production L.L.C., Mohammadreza has produced and directed films that include the co-directed short Our Iranian Lockdown (2020), which was nominated for an IDA Award. Eyni is a 2021 Firelight Media fellow, 2020 Sundance Institute Documentary Fund grantee, and Tribeca Film Institute alum. His co-directed feature Cutting Through Rocks won the Grand Jury Award in the World Cinema Documentary category at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival.

Filmography: The Friend’s House (2019); Our Iranian Lockdown (2020)

 

Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre

Frankenstein

Dir. Guillermo del Toro
149 min

Frankenstein and Guillermo del Toro might have been made for each other. The movie does not disappoint, a ripping yarn of grand adventure, spectacle, hubris, passion and XXL body parts, a tale of the fantastic that rings the imagination. Screening in 35mm.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Predators

Dir. David Osit
96 min

"Punk'd for pedophiles." That's what Jimmy Kimmel called Chris Hansen's true crime/reality TV show, To Catch a Predator (2004-07). Two decades on, David Osit examines why the show made such an impact, for good or ill, and sits down with Hansen himself.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Checkpoint Zoo

Dir. Joshua Zeman
107 min

The amazing true story of the rescue of thousands of animals trapped on the frontline at an Ecopark when Russia invades Ukraine in 2022.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

The Outcasts

Dir. Robert Wynne-Simmons
95 min

One of earliest examples of "folk horror", The Outcasts (1982) draws on Irish mythology and folktales to eerie effect. Simple Maura is rumoured to have spent the night with the mythical fiddler Scarf Michael, with dire consequences for all... Screening followed by a panel discussion on Irish horror.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Urchin

Dir. Harris Dickinson
99 min

This impressive, award-winning debut as writer-director from actor Harris Dickinson is a probing portrait of a troubled street kid trying to get his life back on track before it's too late.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Köln 75

Dir. Ido Fluk
116 min

The true story behind the greatest solo concert in jazz history, this is Keith Jarrett's legendary 1975 Köln Concert — as organized by 18-year-old rebel music promoter Vera Brandes. Fun, inventive and feminist, it's the Bend It Like Beckham of jazz films.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre