Cyrus Nowrasteh and Shohreh Aghdashloo from the Movie The Stoning of Soraya M.

On Friday, June 26, 2009 many lives will be forever changed. It marks the day that a very controversial, depressing and stirring film is released worldwide. “The Stoning of Soraya M.” is a true story of Soraya, a strikingly beautiful woman living in Kupayeh, a small village in Iran in 1986. Soraya is married to Ali, a physically abusive husband who’s a high ranking official in the village prison and together they have four children.

Ali finds himself in love with a prisoner’s 14 year old daughter and wants to divorce his wife, leave her with their two daughters as he takes their two sons. Soraya disagrees with this arrangement and proceeds to tell her Aunt Zahra. She has this beautifully husky voice and a strong spirit that no one; no man can break. This has gained her great respect in the village.

Zahra then appeals to the men in the village that Ali has to pay a huge fee to divorce her niece. Refusing to pay, Ali creates a rumor that Soraya is sleeping with the widower that she works for. In Kupayeh, adultery is punishable by death; stoning to be exact.

This true and horrific story was exposed by French-Iranian journalist Freidoune Sahebjam in his 1994 best-selling book, The Stoning of Soraya M.: A True Story. Director and co-writer Cyrus Nowrasteh adapted the book into a movie in 2008, Jim Caviezel portrays Freidoune, Shohreh Aghdashloo (Academy Award nominee, House of Sand and Fog's) Iranian born actress), plays Zahra and Mozhan Marno is Soraya.

Earlier this week, I had the great opportunity to sit with both the Cyrus and Shohreh and talk about this film and the impact they hope it makes on the free world as it pertains to injustices perpetrated on women and antiquated traditions that are masked by religion and allowed to go on.

Entering the room very nonchalantly and unmoved by our presence, Cyrus sits down and just looks at each of us; he says nothing. You can tell that this is not his favorite part of the film business. He’s the story teller and that’s where he prefers to stay. However, when whimsically asked if partaking in press days is a lot of work, he just retorts, “Not really, this is a great and worthy cause.”