The latest issue of Entertainment Weekly features an in-depth piece on Arab-Americans in Hollywood. ‘Don’t Tell Anyone Your Real Name, or You’ll Never Work Again’ recalls the hardships several Arab-American actors have faced since 9/11.

Their tales of woe are likely genuine. Minorities typically struggle in the entertainment business, from a dearth of positions behind the camera to a paucity of meaty roles in front of it.

But the magazine’s take on the issue borders on the surreal. It also ignores the elephant on the movie set.

“Despite Hollywood’s liberal bent, there’s no shortage of minority groups insulted (or ignored) in movies and on TV,” the story alleges.

Hmmm. Wouldn’t that make the industry prejudiced against people of color? But … but … the industry is liberal, so therefore it cannot be racist, the magazine all but shouts. Meanwhile, media outlets label conservatives and Tea Party types as racist with far less proof – if any.

The story’s bigger problems lie elsewhere. According to EW, Hollywood has been cranking out a steady stream of content where Muslims are depicted as terrorists.

So, where is it? Films have studiously avoided tackling terrorism head on with only a few exceptions – ‘The Kingdom,’ ‘Vantage Point’ and ‘United 93′ come to mind. It’s been a full decade since 9/11. Where are all the terrorism-related films? Has there been one ‘Rambo’-esque hero created to take on Al Qaeda? And if not … why not? Who could possibly object? Television better reflected our post 9/11 world, an era when radical Muslims dominate the news cycle with their carnage. That simply made the medium a target for the article’s scorn.

“In the years immediately following 9/11, TV shows were some of the worst offenders,” the article argues. “‘Sleeper Cell’ and ‘24′ regularly depicted Muslim Americans plotting homegrown terror around the breakfast table.”

To be fair, it’s not like we’ve seen Muslim Americans in the news for attempting to kill innocents with shoe or underwear bombs, or witnessed atrocities like Muslim-American soldiers slaughtering their peers. Oh, wait.

Reflecting reality just won’t do if you write for Entertainment Weekly.

“Despite improvement, Hollywood still clings to stereotypes in a way that would be comical if so much weren’t at stake,” we’re told.

Is the article referring to negative Southerner stereotypes? Or how about those evil corporate types seen in film after film? Perhaps the writer is bemoaning how people of faith are depicted as loons, or worse?

Nope.

To be fair, audiences should reject one-dimensional characters of all kinds, from mad Christians to single-minded suicide bombers. But to punish the entertainment industry for daring to show a few Muslims as terrorists is absurd given the cold, hard facts. And shame on the magazine for not calling out Hollywood for its prejudiced hiring practices.

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After learning of Ashtiani’s sentence, I re-watched the recent HBO documentary “For Neda” (which you can watch in the above clip) and was reminded that although it is not in the news that much anymore, we should not forget the plight of the people in Iran and their continued thirst for a better life for themselves.

Shohreh Aghdashloo (“The Stoning of Soraya M.”) narrated the film about the life of Neda Agha-Soltan, the young woman who was killed during an Iranian protest. “For Neda” begins with footage of Neda’s death. The devastating footage shows the young woman on the streets of Iran breathing her last after being shot. That footage earned the attention of millions who watched Neda’s last moments. Neda’s murder showed how cruel the Iranian regime could be and her death became a symbol of the fight for freedom in Iran.

One of the great things about the documentary is that the film shows how extraordinary Neda’s life actually was. In her death, Neda became a symbol to the international community but in life, she was a rebellious young woman who wanted and fought for a better future for her country.

The film introduces the audience to Neda’s heartbroken family, who continue to grieve her tragic death. The family tells personal details about Neda and they show the audience some of her belongings. Neda was passionate about books, clothes, music and the freedom to enjoy all of those comforts. Unfortunately, she was not able to fully enjoy many of those things as her life was ultimately cut short. The movie shows a beautiful dress that Neda bought shortly before her death, a dress she would  never wear.

The film also notes how little respect the government has for women, including Neda. A woman’s life, the narrator of the film notes, is worth half of a man’s life. A woman’s testimony is half as credible as a man’s. The narrator also states how the rules for stonings are different for men and women. Women are buried deeper into the ground and have less of a chance to escape when they are being stoned to death.

The brutality of the regime of Iran continues today with the death sentence of Ms. Ashtiani. Even though the stoning is on hold, a CNN.com story about the sentence being halted noted that her execution could still take place. The article noted that the Iranian regime seemed to “back away from an execution-by-stoning sentence, although it left open the possibility that Ashtiani could be executed by another method.”

The Iranian regime continues to be brutal even after receiving so much criticism last year in the wake of the controversial elections. We can only hope that Sakineh does not become a symbol of their brutality like Neda has become.

If you have not watched HBO’s documentary “For Neda,” it is definitely worth checking out. We can only hope that the Iranian regime stops the execution of Sakineh and ensures that “For Neda” merits no sequel.

The Stoning of Soraya M., from writer-director Cyrus Nowrasteh and Mpower Pictures, tells the true story of a woman in a remote Iranian village in the wake of the fundamentalist revolution of 1979, who is falsely accused of adultery and then stoned to death by a mob desperate to cleanse themselves of this rumored affront to their collective honor and to their religion. It’s not only a gripping story in its own right, but it also focuses a harsh spotlight on the shocking reality that stoning still exists in the Iranian penal code. The movie has been reviewed and written about many times on Big Hollywood, as well as listed among the site’s 10 best movies of 2009. (Look for it on DVD from Lion’s Gate in March)

Despite official condemnation of the film in Iran and a government clampdown on cell phone and Internet traffic as the country wrestles with revolution, word is getting out from sources close to the filmmakers that bootleg DVDs of The Stoning of Soraya M. are being shared secretly by Iranian citizens and shown in private homes in Tehran, Shiraz, Isfahan, and elsewhere. These sources must be kept anonymous, of course, since arrested protesters there have an unfortunate tendency to be allegedly raped and allegedly tortured, if not allegedly killed. 

In one e-mail dated New Year’s Day, for example, a woman wrote that her “cousin was in a party last night and everybody was talking about [Nowrasteh’s] movie. They all liked it. The movie is all over.” Another woman’s message: “We send our greetings and we congratulate you on ‘Soraya.’ The word that we’re hearing is that if they find this film in anyone’s hands they will be jailed. People fear for their safety and are choked off from the outside world, telephone conversations are monitored…it’s bad.” And yet another source relates that “I was at the hairdresser yesterday and two women were talking about a movie called SANGSAR [Stoning] that they had seen and they like it a lot. I asked about it and they said the dvd is all over Tehran… It is a perfect time for the movie with the mess that is going on here.”

When the film was released in the States last summer, Iranian-American viewers in some communities stood at the end and proclaimed “Down with the regime! Death to the dictator!” Now viewers inside Iran are feeling a similar surge of defiance after watching it, and it has been stiffening their resolve as protesters clash with riot police and the paramilitary Basij on the streets in that “mess that is going on here.” Iranian citizens reportedly see Stoning as dramatic confirmation of why the demonstrations against apocalyptic madman Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his cleric-in-crime, the Ayatollah Khamenei, are taking place – and why women are at the forefront of them, challenging the totalitarians in power just as Soraya’s fearless aunt Zahra confronted the village hypocrites in the film.

Audiences elsewhere have responded to the unforgettable movie’s impact since its premiere at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival, where Stoning won Runner-up for the Audience Choice Award. It also won Second Runner-up for the Cadillac People’s Choice Award, the Audience Award for Best Feature at the Los Angeles Film Festival, the Heartland Truly Moving Picture Award, the Broadcast Film Critics Association’s Critics’ Choice Award, and the Ghent Film Festival’s Canvas Audience Award. At the Satellite Awards, it was named one of 2009’s Top Ten Films and nominated for Best Drama, while its star Shohreh Aghdashloo won Best Actress in a Drama. 

(And yet the Film Independent Spirit Awards, created to celebrate “unique, provocative” films, entirely ignored the movie – one for which the cast and crew literally put their lives and those of their relatives at risk by working on it, and one for which viewers in Iran now put their lives at risk by merely watching it. A movie doesn’t get more provocative than that – but I suppose Film Independent had to make room among its nominees for truly edgy fare like, say, (500) Days of Summer.)

Now The Stoning of Soraya M. is a secret hit in Iran. At a time when many film critics and viewers are feeling a thrill up their collective leg over Cameron’s technical mastery, Stoning’s risky popularity is a reminder that the emotional core and storytelling power of such a film can embarrass the powers-that-be and embolden a brutalized populace to resist, even in the face of imprisonment and execution. Long after the vertigo – or depression, as the case may be – induced by the shiny spectacle of Avatar wears off, Stoning will likely be remembered for the part it is playing in history. 

The real Soraya’s tale has come full circle. Her execution may have been a gut-wrenching tragedy from Iran’s previous revolution, which ushered in a fundamentalist theocracy; but thanks to filmmakers who dared to revive her story, Soraya is helping to empower a new revolution that might just steer Iranians toward freedom.

Several weeks ago, I wrote an article for “Big Hollywood” about the importance of that new film and Aghdashloo’s work as an actress who speaks up for voiceless women. As a follow-up to that article, I had the opportunity to conduct a phone interview with the Oscar nominee who, one day before I spoke to her, was nominated for an Emmy award for her role in the miniseries “House of Saddam.” During the interview, Ms. Aghdashloo spoke about the current situation in Iran, her work in the film “The Stoning of Soraya M.”, and what attracts her to certain projects.

“Whatever happens, Iran will not be the same,” Ms. Aghdashloo said about the recent protests in that country. Although the media attention about the situation in Iran has faded recently, Aghdashloo saw the great potential that the rallies and the protests had a few weeks ago. She told me that the recent events in Iran changed that country and that now the genie was “out of the bottle.” Unfortunately, she also said that the “situation today is worse than a few weeks ago” because of the political prisoners now being held in that nation. Although she has not returned to Iran since the revolution happened thirty years ago, Aghdashloo continues to follow the situation there closely and she still has relatives in the country.  

Iran has not always recognized Aghdashloo’s work as an actress. As she recently told The Washington Post, “Up until the Oscar nomination, my name was banned. Nobody mentioned my name. They knew what I was doing but never mentioned it officially. But I’ll never forget: My mother called and said, ”Your name is in the newspapers.” And this time it was ‘our Shohreh Aghdashloo has been nominated.’”

In terms of her new movie “The Stoning of Soraya M.”, Aghdashloo spoke knowingly about the inhumane practice of stoning. Describing it as being “beyond humanity,” she told me about a video of a real-life stoning that she had watched on video two decades ago where two men were stoned to death for being homosexuals. After watching the video, Aghdashloo told me that she could not eat properly for several days. She then said that she had news for people who question the intensity of the brutal stoning scene near the end of “The Stoning of Soraya M.”– the real act is much, much worse. The video she watched of a real-life stoning was over an hour and a half, she said. As her character in the movie tells the story of the real Soraya M., whose story was told in a book of the same name, Aghdashloo said that, through the publicity for the movie, “I am telling the reporters now what happened.”

During the interview, Aghdashloo also spoke about the choices she makes in finding her newest projects. In looking at a new project, she noted that she looks for metaphors and symbols about the deeper meaning of the project. She also stated that she feels like she has a “duty to tell stories from Iran” and she described herself as “an actress with a mission.” It is no surprise then that Aghdashloo chooses projects like “The Stoning of Soraya M.” that has a clear mission of shedding light on the inhumane practice of stoning that still occurs  in some parts of the world today.

Five years after her Oscar nomination, Aghdashloo’s career continues to flourish. I spoke to her briefly about her recent Emmy nomination for “House of Saddam.” She said that the nomination was “incredible.” With an Oscar nomination, an Emmy nomination and a collection of projects that includes television roles on “Grey’s Anatomy,” “24” and “ER” and roles in such films as “House of Sand and Fog” and “The Stoning of Soraya M.,” many could use the same word to describe Aghdashloo’s career. I have no doubt that the thousands of women she felt accompanied her to the Academy Awards half a decade ago would be proud of the work she has done and look forward to what projects she chooses to pursue in the future.

[Ed. Note: "The Stoning of Soraya M." is now playing in select theatres. Please visit here for a list of locations.]

“The Stoning of Soraya M,” which I had the opportunity to view several weeks ago, is a great film about a difficult subject. The movie tells the story of Soraya M., an Iranian woman accused of betraying her husband and the brutal consequences of that invalid accusation. In the film, Aghdashloo plays an Iranian talking to a reporter about what happened to her niece Soraya only a few hours before the journalist arrived in town. According to the film’s website, the movie  is “inspired by Paris-based journalist Freidoune Sahebjam’s acclaimed international best-seller of the same name which, rife with intrigue and moral outrage, first brought global attention to the real Soraya, who in 1986 was buried to her waist in her hometown square and stoned by her fellow villagers.”

The movie is not easy to watch but the truth of what really happened to Soraya is much more difficult to contemplate partially because there are many other stories of stonings that will never receive the attention of the world. With violence continuing in Iran in the wake of the election there, many critics see this film as an important reminder of the brutality of some leaders and as a reminder of the brutal violence that still occurs throughout this world. Chip Hanlon (no relation) wrote a review on the Huffington Post about this film where he noted the following: “Certainly, it is a story that needs to be told since the barbaric practice of stoning still occurs in our world today…Yet the courage it took to get this story out to the world does little good if this film is missed. ” Columnist Kathleen Parker wrote the following about the film: “It will be hard for many to get through to the end, but staying with the movie brings a reward. Despite the brutality, the film is also beautiful and true. It reminds us that a woman in some parts of the world can be destroyed at a man’s whim without consequence. The beauty is that truth will out. ”

Several days after watching the film, I re-watched Shohreh Aghdashloo’s film “House of Sand and Fog,” a brilliant film about a family forced to move from Iran who end up in a major conflict with the previous owner of their new home in the United States. (Even in the small role of the wife of a former colonel, Aghdashloo received a well-deserved Oscar nomination.)  In the film, Aghdashloo was trying to tell a fictional story about a family struggling to start over in the US. In that movie, as in “The Stoning,” Aghdashloo stood out as an actress who has lived in Iran and who has the depth and ability to play characters from that unique perspective, a perspective that is often lacking in films and television today.

In “The Stoning of Soraya M.” Aghdashloo portrays a woman with a story to tell and not afraid of the consequences of telling that story. As an actress, Aghdashloo tells stories also and, even in minor roles, she gives her characters a strong voice and a mission. However, her characters onscreen are not the only ones with a purpose. 

The Washington Post recently featured an interview with the actress where she said, “The way I have lived and worked and the nature of my being has turned me into an actress with a mission, and I’m looking for subject matters that would shed light on injustices.” People should see “The Stoning of Soraya M.” to learn about a story about a woman that some people wanted to remain voiceless, a story about an injustice that could have been silenced.
 
In telling the story of the stoning, Aghdashloo’s character provides a voice for the reporter who eventually told Soraya’s story to the world. And the actress herself continues to be a brilliant voice for women whose stories might otherwise have been silenced.

For the few who don’t know by now, The Stoning of Soraya M. is based on French-Iranian journalist Freidoune Sahebjam’s bestselling book, which relates the true story of a woman in a remote Iranian village, in the years after the 1979 Khomeini revolution, who is falsely accused of adultery and stoned to death by a mob desperate to cleanse themselves of this affront to their collective honor and to their religion. It’s not only a gripping story in its own right, but it shines a harsh spotlight on the almost unimaginable reality that the barbaric punishment of stoning still exists in the Iranian law code, despite a largely nominal 2002 moratorium, the result of pressure from Western human rights groups.

(Full disclosure, even though I’m not reviewing the film here: I’m close friends with the filmmakers Cyrus and Betsy Nowrasteh, I provided Mpower Pictures with a bit of research on the project, I’m friends with other cast and crew and producers associated with the film, and I think stoning is bad. So don’t take my word for it when I say Soraya will be the most important, affecting film you’ll see all year. Instead seek out the multitude of reviewers who recommend the film, including Big Hollywood’s John Nolte and then see it for yourself.)

Following Saturday’s screening was a panel discussion, not so much moderated as simply hosted by Iranian novelist Khaled Hosseini, author of the bestselling The Kite Runner, who personally selected the film for the L.A. Film Festival. The panel also included Soraya’s writer-director Cyrus Nowrasteh, starring actress Shohreh Aghdashloo, and Dr. Reza Aslan, billed as an Islamic scholar.

Heading off any concerns about possible Islam-bashing in the movie, Mr. Nowrasteh noted at the discussion’s outset that Soraya is actually a pro-Muslim film, because it shows how a few hypocrites can hijack a religion for personal reasons, not to mention that the story’s victim is herself Muslim. He went on to discuss his personal attraction to the story and the process of bringing it to the big screen. Ms. Aghdashloo eloquently responded to a couple of questions about her personal passion for the role and for addressing the real-world issue of stoning.

The Q & A was shorter-lived than many including myself would have liked, or at least less focused; one question, for example, was directed to Mr. Hosseini about his novels rather than the movie. But the focus really got blurry when Reza Aslan took the mic.

“Well,” he started, “I guess it’s up to me to put this into some sort of historical context.” If only he had, then people might better understand why the outrage of stoning still exists, and why it exists today only in territories in the grip of Sharia, or Islamic law. Instead Aslan proceeded to so dilute any context at all that people told me at the reception later, which he did not attend, that they either had no idea what he was talking about or simply tuned him out. What he did do, in several obfuscating turns at bat, was utterly whitewash Islam, its prophet Mohammed, and Iranian lawmakers past and present of any responsibility whatsoever for the practice of stoning.

He began by asserting that “many cultures” struggled with the issue of stoning. I nearly interrupted him right there to ask, “Really? Which cultures besides those under the thrall of Sharia law? Do Laplanders stone adulterers? Peruvian Indians? The Watusi? Minnesotans?” Aslan clouded any potential for understanding by claiming that culture, not religion, is responsible.

Dr. Aslan, an assistant professor of creative writing at UC Riverside with degrees in religion, is such a professorial rock star that he has a MySpace fan page (“Even though he’s the greatest smartie-pants ever he’s a living doll and exceedingly cool,” the site gushes). Not unusually for professors, he seemed to revel in regaling his captive audience with rambling answers devoid of much actual meaning. At one point the answer meandered so tortuously that when Aslan was done I turned to friend and fellow Big Hollywood contributor Charles Winecoff and said, “What was the question again?” “Question?” Charles replied. “What was the answer?”

The gist of his message was this: not only is religion inseparable from culture, but the words of, say, the Bible or Quran are utterly devoid of meaning in and of themselves, blank slates upon which we impose our own biased interpretations. Thus, to use one of Aslan’s own examples, if you’re a “misogynistic prick,” you’re going to view the Quran through that woman-hating lens and impose your own meaning upon it, regardless of what Mohammed, supposedly transcribing directly from Allah, actually wrote. Hence, Islam and Mohammed are not responsible for their followers’ misinterpretations, their patriarchal culture is.

No one would deny that religion and culture aren’t closely intertwined (though I would argue that religion influences culture more than the other way around), but puh-leeze – it’s beyond absurd to say that there is no substantive difference between Mohammed’s message and Jesus’, that there is no meaning inherent in their words, or that the massive edifices of their religions have not been built, shakily or not, upon the foundations of those words. It’s also disingenuous to suggest that present-day stoning has nothing to do with a seventh-century religious directive. It’s true that stoning is a pre-Islamic practice not mentioned in the Quran; but the tenets of Islam are based not solely on the Quran, but derive also from the hadith, or the tales of Mohammed’s life, and Dr. Aslan neglected to mention that Mohammed does command stoning as a punishment for adultery in the hadith.

Nonie Darwish, the Egyptian-American author of, most recently, Cruel and Usual Punishment: The Terrifying Global Implications of Islamic Law, and someone who knows a thing of two about women under Islam, stood in the audience and challenged Aslan at length about Mohammed and misogyny. He acknowledged one minor, innocuous point, but then dismissed her flatly with “Everything else you said is wrong” and handed the mic back to Mr. Hosseini. Not “That’s a common misconception,” or “Let me quote chapter and verse of the Quran to clarify things.” Just “Wrong.” End of discussion.

(Yet more disclosure: I personally know Ms. Darwish and can attest that she is an affecting, enlightening speaker precisely because she speaks truth plainly and without the kind of empty circumlocutions Dr. Aslan relies on to befuddle the uninformed and to absolve religion of any responsibility for the actions of its believers.)

After implying that Islam has simply been distorted by lots of misogynistic pricks, Dr. Aslan cheerily reassured us that Islamic scholars through the ages got around their discomfort with the whole stoning embarrassment by making it “impossible” to convict anyone of adultery, thanks to a legal formula of required witnesses that stacks the deck in favor of the alleged adulterer. Sounds good, except that people get convicted of it and stoned anyway, and he doesn’t explain why, if Mohammed/Allah never sanctioned it, Islamic scholars ever had to wrestle with the practice in the first place or why they don’t simply ban it as un-Islamic.

To be fair, Dr. Aslan did cut through the fog with a couple of straightforward declarations, but even these raised more questions than they answered. One such jaw-dropping assertion – “There is no such thing as Sharia” – will come as thrilling news to those awaiting lashings, amputations, beheadings, and stonings in communities from Somalia to Nigeria to Afghanistan to Saudi Arabia, etc. where Sharia is in full effect. Another Aslan stunner: “Mohammed was a seventh century feminist.” Surely, I thought, this outrageous soundbite would elicit guffaws from the audience!

But the audience sat guffaw-less. Instead, applause greeted almost every one of Aslan’s opaque, vaporous commentaries. I’d like to believe that this was because he had finally finished talking, but the disappointing reality is that he was simply affirming things that many in the audience, Iranian and otherwise, desperately wanted to believe: that there is no connection between Islam and the Sharia-sanctioned brutality we’d just seen dramatized onscreen, and that Iranian authorities actually disapprove of it.

A much-comforted Iranian woman next to me stood up and, after insisting on being called upon by Mr. Hosseini, gushed “Reza, I love you!” She neglected to express such love for Cyrus Nowrasteh, the director of this extraordinary film; maybe Mr. Nowrasteh needs to rev up his own MySpace fan page.

Overall, Dr. Aslan breezily downplayed stonings in general - Hey, they almost never happen and only in outlying areas out of reach of the rule of big city law, so what’s the big deal? Irrepressible radio host and documentary filmmaker John Ziegler, sitting behind me at the screening, let out a sardonic “Besides, it’s not like it’s as bad as waterboarding, right?” But that wasn’t any solace to a 13-year-old girl sentenced by a Sharia court and stoned to death for adultery in Somalia just last October (after going to the authorities herself and reporting she was gang-raped).

Admittedly, that wasn’t in Iran. Okay, so let’s look at the recent record there: an Iranian woman’s conviction of adultery was upheld just last November and her sentence of stoning confirmed. In January of this year, two men were stoned to death in Iran for adultery, and in May of this year, yet another man was stoned to death (the woman involved repented and presumably got her lashings instead). At least ten more men and women await death by stoning around the country.

The Stoning of Soraya M. is too important a film, and the issue of stoning under Sharia law (oops, I forgot – Sharia doesn’t exist) is too critical to allow an apologist like Dr. Aslan to whitewash Sharia with vague deflections and rude dismissal of debate. Lives are still at stake; men and women are still facing death in this grotesque manner (did I mention that it is specified in Iranian law that the stones to be hurled must not be too small to inflict significant damage nor too big to kill the victim immediately?). If we do not debate honestly the medieval ideology that lies behind this cruel practice, it will never end, and there will be more Sorayas.

This just in, even as I write: The Iranian judiciary is claiming they’ve decided to eliminate stoning. Call me skeptical, but I’ll believe it when it’s officially enshrined in law, when those awaiting death by stoning have their sentences commuted (to lashings, which will certainly result in very muted cellblock celebration), and when no more stonings happen, even in remote villages. In any case, considering that The Stoning of Soraya M. was on a list released in March of Western films that Iran finds objectionable and insulting, and considering the widespread international media focus on Soraya and its relevance to the current unrest in Iran, there’s no doubt that the growing awareness of the film has pressured the Iranian authorities to at least look like they’re doing the right thing.

In an impressive feat of direction Nowrasteh accomplishes this, making “Soraya” much more than a film of the political moment or a position paper on the Middle East. In a current events’ vacuum, maybe even set on another planet, the story would work without the benefit of allegory. This is a universal, human story, after all, but not the story of a victim, but of a woman’s remarkable courage and determination to free the truth.  This woman is Zahra (Shohreh Aghdashloo), and yesterday her niece Soraya M. (Mozhan Marnò), was buried alive up to her chest and stoned to death.

Based on Freidoune Sahebjam’s non-fiction novel of the same name, “The Stoning of Soraya M.,” takes place in 1986, seven years after Iran’s Islamic revolution. Due to car trouble, Freidoune (James Caviezel), a French-Iranian journalist, finds himself stranded in a remote Iranian village.  He had hoped the downtime would allow him to quietly sip tea in a cafe and catch up on some work, but Zahra won’t leave him alone. Discreetly, she flitters about, following, quietly hoping to catch his eye, demanding his attention. The villagers warn Freidoune that Zahra’s crazy, not all there, but a reporter’s instinct wins out and soon he finds himself in her courtyard listening to a very real horror story. From here, in flashbacks, we meet Soraya M. and watch with ever-increasing dread as terrible men, and even some women, move events against her trumping up false charges of adultery.

Soraya’s “sin” is innocence, an inability to recognize events for what they are. She’s a well drawn character whose strength and spirit we admire even as we shake our heads at the naivete which plays such a large part in her demise. She simply can’t fathom the defiance of her husband, Ali, could lead to anything worse than a beating, which she’s willing to take because the divorce he wants in order to marry a much younger woman means no support for Soraya and her children. 

Zahra’s even more fascinating, a clever and wise woman incapable of dishonestly. Though unafraid to speak her mind in a society where such characteristics only mean trouble, Aghdashloo infuses Zahra with such an unspoken dignity and authority that this helps to make perfect sense of her survival. Any act of silencing her would be an admission that she’s right. At the same time, Zahra’s in a harrowing position of her own. Ever watchful, she not only understands that gears are in motion, but where they could lead. But like something out of a nightmare, she can’t stop what’s happening or convince her beloved niece to act until it’s too late.

The three central performances are flawless, the sense of time and place impeccable, and the score beautifully evocative. The pace does slow in spots and the final button on Ali’s relationship with the younger woman was a little too tidy in the irony department for my taste, but the central sequence, the stoning, is unforgettable. Explicit, unflinching and emotionally shattering, it’s also conceived, choreographed and shot like an accomplished short film with a three-act structure and devastating character moments all its own.

Because of the violence, setting, and presence of Caviezel, comparisons to “The Passion of the Christ” are inevitable, but these are two very different films. “The Passion” was about helping the faithful to better understand the suffering of our Lord. “Soraya” isn’t about suffering. Instead it serves as a compassionate and at times visceral reminder that monsters, shielded by monstrous laws, international indifference and those selfishly comforted by the stability of dictators, walk among us; that even today, societies exist where an ideological poison breeds men capable of such wicked and inhuman acts.

But on the flip side, Nowrasteh does something equally important, does something not a single one of these dozen or so anti-war films has dared: he puts a real, human and accessible face on the people of the Middle East. Leftist bigots refuse to do this. It works in opposition to their depraved need to embarrass Bush and America by abandoning millions of Middle Eastern and Muslim innocents to terrorists and death squads. Certainly Nowrasteh shines a light on monsters, but he also sees Soraya and Zahra and Freidoune and children and two somewhat sympathetic but weak and conflicted men caught in a tide of something evil and impossible. “Soraya” is a first in many years, a film that introduces us to the good people of this region and reminds us of our common humanity.

Those images of brave Iranians demanding self-determination currently playing across our television screens will undoubtedly add an emotional resonance to “Soraya” when it opens this Friday, but there’s no expiration date on the broader themes at play here. There will always be evil and there will always be a need to point to it and call it by name.

Set in 1986 Iran – the Islamic Republic of Iran – Stoning is a gut-wrenching film with haunting music.  Nowrasteh’s movie, set to open June 26, is based on a book about the crime by French-Iranian journalist Freidoune Sahebjam. 

The film opens with Freidoune (James Caviezel) breaking down in his car on his way to the border.  Spending unwanted hours in a small village, he is approached by Zahra (Shohreh Aghdashloo), a woman the villagers try to shoo away as they call her crazy.  But Zahra has a terrible secret.  She does all she can to get word to the journalist about a terrible injustice committed in the village the previous day when her niece, Soraya M. (Mozhan Marnò), falsely accused of adultery by her cheating husband, Ali (Navid Negahban), was stoned to death per Islamic law. 

Stoning’s premise, repeated with numbing regularity around the world today, is made all the more pressing by the masses of Iranians protesting in the streets today while the brutal Basij militia tries to beat them into submission.  But it’s one thing for a stoning of an accused “adulteress” to occur in Somalia, and quite another for it to happen in the soon-to-be-nuclear-armed Islamic Republic of Iran.  If a nation thinks nothing of stoning women to death for the “crime” of adultery while killing peaceful protesters, it takes no imagination to think of what they will do when in possession of a nuclear bomb.  

The film is tightly put together and the acting is natural and intense.  The actors mostly speak Farsi throughout the film, but they communicate volumes, relegating the captions to a supporting role.  Nowrasteh effortlessly allows his film to unfold.  He gradually builds tension, while adding depth to the main characters’ soul.  The end is inevitable as it is jarring, with the males of the village engaging in the collective guilt of the stoning while most of the women watch and wail.  The act of stoning takes away the village’s “dishonor” one stone at a time, according to the mullah. 

It is no small task to adapt a book to the screen, especially a book of the intensity of Sahebjam’s work, but Betsy Giffen Nowrasteh and Cyrus Nowrasteh have done the job with the precision of a brain surgeon.  The husband and wife team add nothing more than needed, while everything needed remains.   

Lastly, a note about John Debney’s music: it is beyond superb.  With a cast and crew of Iranian expatriates making a film about life in the Islamic Republic of Iran, Nowrasteh could have easily settled for a selection of traditional Persian folk music.  This would have been true to form, but likely would have missed the opportunity to tightly tailor the music to the requirements of film while appealing to wider audiences.  It is interesting to see that Debney worked on “Passion of the Christ” (for which Debney was nominated for an Academy Award) along with Caviezel five years ago.  Clearly Debney has developed a talent for producing Mideast-themed music for the big screen. 

Cyrus Nowrasteh’s “The Stoning of Soraya M.” could not have come at a better time for the world.  While Iranians struggle to transcend tyranny and most Americans, including our President, remain rooted in inaction, Stoning proves that Hollywood’s capacity to combat evil is still intact.

Directed and co-written by Cyrus Nowrasteh, “The Stoning of Soraya M.“ is based on Freidoune Sahebjam’s novel and stars Jim Caviezel and Shohreh Aghdashloo. According to a press release, it opens June 26th “in New York, Los Angeles and other key markets, with a national roll out to follow.”

More information is available at the official website.