‘Cutting Through Rocks’ Review: A Sharp Documentary Profiles a Motorcycle-Loving Woman Who Takes on the Patriarchy in Rural Iran

Sara Khaki and Mohammadreza Eyni’s precisely lensed “Cutting Through Rocks“ is a deftly shaped work of cinematic nonfiction that opens with a literal bang, as we cut from a black screen to a middle-aged, headscarf-clad woman wrestling with a metal door that’s become unhinged; eventually she decides to buzzsaw through the surrounding stone enclosure to make it fit back in. It’s an apt metaphor for the formidable Sara Shahverdi, a longtime divorcee in a deeply religious region of northwest Iran — a woman who’s spent most of her life flouting gender norms and giving the finger to convention. The former midwife is also a vocal advocate for the empowerment of women and girls, which includes access to education and an end to child marriage. And, of course, she’s also an advocate for the right to ride a motorcycle, her greatest passion of all.

To read the rest of my review visit IndieWire.

“Making Films in Iran Is Not an Easy Task at All”: Sara Khaki and Mohammadreza Eyni on their Sundance-debuting Cutting Through Rocks

Sara Khaki and Mohammadreza Eyni’s Cutting Through Rocks follows Sara Shahverdi, a middle-aged divorcee in a remote and extremely conservative region of the Islamic Republic of Iran. What makes the scenario rather remarkable that Shahverdi is neither pariah nor wallflower in her tiny town. On the contrary, the onetime midwife, who quite literally brought an entire generation of her village into the world, is also a loud motorcycle-riding rebel who ran for a seat at the government table and won. And now, as the first elected councilwoman, a woman who finds herself at the center of an incompetent bureaucracy, one in which the proverbial glass ceiling just might be made of stone. A few days prior to the film’s World Cinema Documentary Competition debut on January 27th, Filmmaker caught up with the married co-directors to learn all about their seven-year journey with Shahverdi, including staying safe through the “rare knowledge” of their formidable star.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

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“You’d Be Surprised How Happy People Are to Talk About the Best Times in Their Lives”: Elegance Bratton on His Sundance-Debuting Doc, Move Ya Body: The Birth of House

"A good party knows no fucking sexual orientation, no race, no socioeconomic background,” notes Vince Lawrence, the very first person to record a house song and the main protagonist in Elegance Bratton’s Sundance-debuting Move Ya Body: The Birth of House. That a global movement could be traced back to a rather nerdy Black youngster raised in the segregated world of Mayor Daley’s Chicago is just one surprising element in this lovingly crafted music history lesson. (Less surprising is the number of white folks who would also like to take credit.) But perhaps most remarkable is that through a combination of eye-catching archival imagery, dance floor beats, a wealth of interviews with the sound’s pioneering artists and DJs – and even reenactments – Bratton has managed to create a time capsule of an all-inclusive community, while keeping the party going loud and proud onscreen. The week before the doc’s January 26th (Premieres section) Sundance debut, Filmmaker caught up with the director-writer-producer-photographer, who was last on the festival circuit with his TIFF-premiering 2022 narrative feature The Inspection.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“Playing Three-Dimensional Chess”: Balancing Personal Lives and the Status Quo in Violet Du Feng’s ‘The Dating Game’

At the start of Violet Du Feng’s Sundance-debuting The Dating Game we learn that, due to the former one-child policy, China now has 30 million more men than women, an eye-catching number that presents dire implications for the country. But behind the cold facts are flesh and blood human beings — and potential clients for a dating coach named Hao. Hao trains lovelorn males in the techniques of “strategic deception”, such as makeovers, enhanced social media profiles, and cagey communication skills. It’s into this faux glamorous world that three rural wife-seekers step. Zhou, Li, and Wu are all shy but willing to try as they take part in Hao’s fast-paced, week-long dating boot camp. They begin to question what to wear, who to pursue — and most importantly, how far on the spectrum between truth and lies they’re willing to go to meet their match. While the doc is specific to China, it’s also universal in its critique of how capitalism, consumerism, and social media collide to create a generation that assumes everyone is faking who they are and therefore concludes that they too must “fake it to make it.” As the film progresses, we learn that Hao’s just a village boy who made it in the big city, and even managed to land the stylish Wen (herself a dating coach for women whose advice couldn’t be more at odds with that of her husband’s). In other words, what Hao is really selling is the eternal rags to riches story, the forever elusive Chinese dream. A week before the film’s World Cinema Documentary Competition premiered today, Documentary reached out to Feng, whose Peabody and Emmy-nominated Hidden Letters (2022) tackled gender stereotypes from the female side.

To read my interview visit Documentary magazine.

A Conversation With Poulomi Basu (Maya: The Birth of a Superhero)

Who knew knocking down taboos could be so much fun? With Maya: The Birth of a Superhero, a VR piece that exhibited in the Immersive Competition, first edition at Cannes, and is currently available on Meta Quest, the UK-based Indian neurodiverse artist Poulomi Basu, along with her collaborator CJ Clarke, have crafted a coming of age tale that playfully tackles a topic usually discussed behind closed doors (if at all): menstruation. Indeed, with the titular, South Asian teen as our guide, we’re taken to a threatening land (contemporary London) filled with emotional minefields, forced to navigate everything from bullying classmates to a conservative mom for whom shaming comes easier than any expressions of love. Fortunately, Maya’s got some kickass girl moves – able to hurl tampons with Herculean strength! – which allow her (and us) to ultimately overcome insidious patriarchal stigma, the greatest hurdle of all.

To read my interview visit Hammer to Nail.

“A Deep Dive Into My Trauma”: Shiori Ito on Black Box Diaries

Shiori Ito’s Black Box Diaries is a film the Japanese journalist should never have had to make. Based on her international bestseller, the Sundance-premiering doc is a dogged investigation into a rape perpetrated by another Japanese journalist, Noriyuki Yamaguchi, a longtime friend of the late former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, whose biography the offender penned as well. It’s also a somewhat surreal journey, given that the brave survivor in the purposely stalled case is Ito herself. Through an engaging mix of secret recordings, vérité shooting and confessional video, we’re invited along on an increasingly maddening odyssey through the shockingly antiquated Japanese judicial system; exposing a hidden world where, prior to production, rape laws hadn’t been changed for 110 years. As a result the minimum sentence for rape was shorter than for theft, and was provable not by a lack of consent but only by physical violence or threats. Add to this the chances of a female officer taking on your case being next to nil (since women make up less than 8% of the force), and the fact that you’ll likely have to re-traumatize yourself by reenacting the incident with a life-sized doll for the assigned policeman, and it’s easy to see why only four percent of violated women even bother to report the crime. That is, until an undaunted reporter suddenly decided to seek justice for herself and others by documenting everything, and calling BS on it all. Just prior to the October 25th theatrical release of Black Box Diaries, Filmmaker reached out to the gender-based human rights-focused writer and filmmaker, who in 2020 also made Time magazine’s list of 100 most influential people in the world.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.