June 26th at selected theaters..
The pivotal scene in director Cyrus Nowrasteh’s new film unfolds slowly, letting the audience absorb every soul-crushing second.
First, a hole is dug in the ground. Then, the accused adulterer is lowered into the empty space and workers bury her up to her waist in dirt.
Then, the woman’s neighbors, young and old — as well as her immediate family — start collecting stones to throw at her until she dies.
The Stoning of Soraya M. is unlike any film we’ve seen before. It’s an unflinching glimpse at the very worst side of Iranian culture, an indictment of a barbaric ritual defended and embraced by an entire village.
L.A. Times 
"The Stoning of Soraya M." lives up to its title quite literally -- and rightly so, for it is important to understand just how cruel and drawn-out this ancient form of execution is and how prevalent it remains, not just in Iran, the film's setting, but in countries throughout the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa that follow Islamic Sharia law.
The timing of the film's release is apt, for it serves as a metaphor for the current protests in Iran against the long-standing oppressiveness of the Islamic Republic.
Based on a true story recounted in the late Freidoune Sahebjam's book, "The Stoning of Soraya M." was filmed in a remote mountain village in an undisclosed Middle Eastern country. Jim Caviezel is cast as Sahebjam, an eminent Iranian journalist based in France who is passing through the village when he is accosted by a distraught woman, Zahra (Shohreh Aghdashloo), who prevails upon him to tape the terrible story she has to tell.
Only the day before, her niece Soraya (Mozhan Marnò) was executed in the town square by stoning. Her husband, Ali (Navid Negahban), who has the village leaders in his thrall, had concocted a flimsy and completely false charge of adultery against Soraya, the mother of their four children, so that he can be free to marry a 14-year-old girl; Soraya had refused to divorce Ali because she had no other means of support.
The Corner
I saw the movie The Stoning of Soraya M., at a private showing in Washington, D.C. and, although I have seen many pictures of the stoning of the women and young girls by the Iranian Islamic regime, I could not believed that the human race is capable of such cruelty. Apparently our words and cries are not strong enough to raise human-rights awareness, but this movie can help our cause. After all, one picture is worth a thousand words.
As the only Iranian woman is the room, I tried hard to suppress my tears. I kept thinking, “This can not be the country I grew up in! Where have these people come from? They can not be the people I lived among!” No wonder all the old Iranian philosophers have looked at the mullahs as evil beings.
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