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"

vHopeful Conversations Podcast · Feb 26, 2026 · 38m

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…