Inside the Edit with BIPOC Doc Editors: CUTTING THROUGH ROCKS
About this Event Recording
Join Sundance Collab and BIPOC Doc Editors for an online conversation with the filmmakers of Cutting Through Rocks. Discover their masterclass in distillation: how they sculpted seven years of footage into a briskly-paced, inspiring documentary feature. Don't miss this deep dive into their process.
The discussion brings together the two key collaborators on the film:
- Director, Producer, and Editor Sara Khaki
- Director, Producer, Editor, and Cinematographer Mohammadreza Eyni
Cutting Through Rocks chronicles the life of Sara Shahverdi, the first elected councilwoman in her remote village in northwestern Iran. The film depicts her battles within the conservative community as she fights to empower women and young girls. A divorced, motorcycle-riding feminist, Shahverdi is an iconic documentary subject: fierce, unapologetic, and full of life. Khaki and Eyni’s camera follows her through the ups and downs of fighting for change within a tradition-bound community.
The film premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Documentary award and has received universal praise during its festival run. Critics have called it “seamlessly edited,” (Screen Daily), “a deftly shaped work of cinematic nonfiction” (Indiewire), and “a beautifully crafted documentary that celebrates the profound ways in which women like Shahverdi can – and do – change the world around them” (Next Best Picture).
In this session, Khaki and Eyni dissect key scenes and discuss their unique approach to co-editing the film. The presentation will conclude with an audience Q&A, where attendees can learn more about how they edited this remarkable documentary feature.
This event was part of the “Inside the Edit with BIPOC Doc Editors” series, a program hosted by Sundance Collab in collaboration with BIPOC Doc Editors. Follow these links to watch our previous events in this series which included the films Spermworld, Patrice: The Movie, and Sabbath Queen.
Event RecordingTeam
Mohammadreza Eyni
Mohammadreza Eyni is a director and producer whose career and cinematic approach aims to bridge boundaries, elevate underrepresented voices, and connect diverse perspectives globally. He is a 2025 Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Award winner in the World Documentary competition for his feature documentary Cutting Through Rocks, which has become an audience favorite at Sydney, Hot Docs, Visions Du Reél international film festivals, among others. His cinematic approach has been heralded as “uniquely propulsive,” “practically magical” (Variety) and “precisely lensed” (Indiewire) as well as “delivering simple moments into cinematic poetry” (Hammer to Nail.) He was named as one of the top five cinematographers to watch at Sundance in 2025.
His intimate short film Our Iranian Lockdown, streaming on The Guardian, has received an IDA Awards nomination. His co-directed Netflix Original Convergence: Courage in a Crisis was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Current Affairs Film. Mohammadreza has been supported by Sundance Institute, IDFA Bertha Foundation, Hot Docs Cross Current Doc Fund, among others. He is a Tribeca Film Institute alumnus and graduated with an MFA in cinema from Tehran University of Fine Arts.
Sara Khaki
Sara Khaki is a documentary director, producer, and editor dedicated to telling stories that promote gender equity. She is a Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Award winner, World Cinema Documentary and Visions Du Reél Audience Award winner for her feature documentary Cutting Through Rocks, which follows the first elected councilwoman of a rural Iranian village. The film has been called “a deftly shaped work of cinematic nonfiction” by Indiewire and “one of those profound vérité documentaries that are only possible through the patience and perseverance of the filmmakers” by POV Magazine.
Her short film Our Iranian Lockdown is now streaming on The Guardian and received an IDA Awards nomination. Sara’s co-directed Netflix Original Convergence: Courage in a Crisis was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Current Affairs Film. Sara graduated from the University of Maryland, Baltimore with a BFA in cinematic arts and from the School of Visual Arts with an MFA in social documentary filmmaking. A grantee of the Sundance Film Institute, Chicken & Egg Films, and Firelight Media, Sara’s work continues to amplify change on gender equity through the cinéma vérité form.
Soheil Rezayazdi
Moderator | Digital Course & Event Producer
Soheil Rezayazdi is a Digital Course & Event Producer at the Sundance Institute, where he produces multi-session courses, master classes, filmmaker Q&As, and other digital programs for Sundance Collab. Prior to Sundance, Soheil served as the Nonfiction Programs Manager at the Gotham Film & Media Institute. He oversaw the Gotham’s core documentary programs: the Documentary Feature Lab, the Spotlight on Documentaries project market, and the Documentary Development Initiative in partnership with HBO Documentary Films. Soheil has worked with emerging filmmakers since 2015, when he began a seven-year tenure at the Columbia University MFA Film Program. At Columbia he managed the Columbia University Film Festival (CUFF), the Dr. Saul and Dorothy Kit Film Noir Festival, and the Carla Kuhn Memorial Speaker Series.
Soheil is also a freelance writer on film and pop culture with articles in Indiewire, McSweeney’s, Vice, Filmmaker Magazine, Documentary Magazine, Paper, Paste, and elsewhere. He has also served as an external reviewer for artist programs operated by Creative Capital, Kartemquin Pictures, Chicken & Egg Pictures, and the International Documentary Association. A native of Iran, he holds an MA in journalism and a BA in film studies from the University of Iowa.