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

Soon after, the quiet mood was broken and a smile appeared on his face when Cyrus saw a make shift version of a recorder stand staring directly in his face– this was funny to him.

Share in the rest of our time together with Cyrus Nowrasteh.

GC: Did you meet the fellow who wrote the book? What were your conversations like with him?

CN: We had great conversations. We talked about the writing of the book, his journey to Iran, what he was doing there, but most importantly, how we make this film as authentic as possible. He was worried that I’d film it on the back lot out in Utah somewhere and he was worried about the authenticity of the language and the culture.

GC: What went into the authenticity when filming, because obviously, you didn’t go into Iran to shoot?

CN: No that would have been problematic. However, we went to an Arab country in the Middle East, I guess that’s what I’m supposed to say. I had shot in morocco a couple of years ago, but Morocco had become expensive. The crews there are very good, but on our budget we needed to go somewhere else and we found a magnificent village in the mountains which looked exactly like the village the author had given me a photo of where this tragedy took place. That village where we shot matched it pretty well. It turned out magnificent on film, it’s never been photographed before, so this village you’ve never seen before. With Morocco, you’ve seen those villages many times before.

GC: I’m curious about your moral, spiritual and ethical challenges of filming something so close to home for you since that is your origin of background. What was that like, the struggle, if any?

CN: Well it was an honor to tell this story so it doesn’t feel like a struggle; instead it feels like you’re going on this important journey. We had found the book, developed the screenplay and took it to Shohreh (Agdashloo) and decisions were made based on many conversations with the author to keep it authentic and work with Farsi actors; speaking Farsi. Now, we didn’t have producers yet and I actually felt that it was going to be difficult to do it that way. I thought we may have had to do it in English, but we were going to have to fight that. Part of my ammunition was the discussions with the author and then it’s about authenticity in terms of the look the feel and the flavor of the village; of the customs. I asked my father to come on location; he’s retired, but I wanted a language and cultural advisor that I trusted implicitly. I felt like my cast needed to focus on what they were doing. He was indispensible to me and this really became a mission for a lot of the people involved with the movie. The principle cast members in the film are Iranian actors living in exile and they understood what it was about and they were motivated.