Sara Shahverdi, the protagonist of Iranian Oscar-nominated documentary Slicing Via Rocks, won’t make it to the Academy Awards ceremony on March 15, the filmmakers have introduced.
Co-directors Sara Khaki and Mohammadreza Eyni mentioned in a social media publish that they had been hoping to get Shahverdi to L.A. however that the mixture of the U.S. visa ban for individuals from Iran and the present scenario of their nation had made it inconceivable.
“As a result of U.S. journey ban, together with the various ongoing circumstances in Iran, Sara Shahverdi is just not in a position to be current on the Oscars. We really hoped to be collectively after eight years of engaged on this movie facet by facet, however sadly, that received’t be potential,” they wrote.
Slicing Via Rocks follows the work of trailblazing Iranian midwife Shahverdi, who defied patriarchal tradition in her village to grow to be its first ever council girl. The movie world premiered on the Sundance Movie Competition in 2025, successful the Grand Jury Prize within the World Cinema – Documentary class, and has been on a packed pageant run ever since.
Information of Shahverdi’s absence from the Oscar ceremony got here as Israel introduced its joint navy marketing campaign in Iran with the U.S. was getting into a “new stage” after hanging a gap blow on the Iranian regime, which included the killing of its Supreme Chief Ali Khamenei.
Because the battle marks its seventh day, Israel continues to pound the Iranian capital of Tehran and Lebanese capital of Beirut, the place it says it’s focusing on pro-Iranian Hezbollah places, with the complete Gulf area on excessive alert for additional missile and drone assaults out of Iran.
Shahverdi lives in a village within the province of Zanjan in northwestern Iran, the capital of which hosted large pro-democracy demonstrations in January and has since been hit by Israeli and U.S. strikes on Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) targets.
Iran-born U.S.-based filmmakers Khaki and Eyni spent eight years following the lifetime of Shahverdi, who caught their consideration for having received a council seat in addition to her penchant for motorbikes and prowess as a midwife, delivering greater than 400 kids.
Slicing Via Rocks follows Shahverdi as she navigates native politics as the one elected feminine village councillor out of 1,500 males representing 300 villages, advocating for ladies’s rights and actively campaigning for the training of ladies and in opposition to little one brides.
The movie made historical past in January as the primary Iranian manufacturing to be nominated within the Greatest Documentary class on the 98th Academy Awards, and is competing in opposition to The Alabama Answer, Come See Me within the Good Gentle, Mr. No person In opposition to Putin, and The Excellent Neighbor.
Iran is additionally represented on the Oscars this 12 months by dissident director Jafar Panahi’s Cannes Palme d’Or winner It Was Simply An Accident, which has been nominated within the Greatest Worldwide Function Movie class as France’s entry.
