Soraya Manouchehri is an Iranian girl who gained fame, having died due to the old death penalty "stoning", which was used by ancient Jews. In 2008, her story became the basis of the American drama Cyrus Nauraste, which was released under the title "Stoning Soraya M.".
Tragic story
The story of Sorayu Manouchehri became known thanks to a book by an Iranian of French descent Freudun Sahejan. It tells about the life of a girl from an ordinary Iranian village.
Sahejjan describes how a car broke down in an Iranian province. When he was forced to wait for her to be repaired, one woman told him how the day before her niece had been beaten to death. Based on her story, he wrote a documentary short story.
Soraya Manuchehri was married to a man named Ali. They had four children - two young daughters and two teenage sons. At some point, Ali decided to divorce his wife, and to take his wife younger. Of course, under Iranian laws, he had the right to have two wives, but did not want to spend money on their maintenance.
He invited Soraya to divorce, but she showed obstinacy. The woman did not want to leave herself with her daughters without a livelihood and a breadwinner, so she did not give a divorce to Ali. Even his betrayals and regular beatings did not help.
Soraya understood that the father would take the sons, and that she and her daughters would actually leave her on the street.
Chance of salvation
Enlightenment came in the story of Soraya Manuchehri when she was offered a job as a servant for a widower who had recently lost his wife. She dreamed of earning at least some money in order to gain independence from her husband and leave him. Therefore, I agreed to this work.
Soraya Manouchehri took up housekeeping, helped the widower in everything. This occasion was used by her husband, who wanted to get a divorce at any cost. He organized everything in such a way that the local council accused and condemned the woman of treason. As it turned out later, he did this using intimidation, blackmail, and also processed many local residents to form the appropriate public opinion.
The local council, guided by the laws of Sharia, decided to kill Soraya in a cruel, but simple and economical way - to stone for frivolous cohabitation with a neighbor.
Execution
It is worth emphasizing how terrible the real story of Soraya Manouchehri is. Indeed, according to Sharia, execution is called “stoning”, in reality this means stoning to death.
It happens like this. For the culprit they dig a hole, put in it a man tied with a rope on his hands and feet. He is covered with earth on his chest, and then they start throwing stones at him until they kill him. At the same time, they make sure that before his death he suffers as much as possible.
According to Sharia law, when a man accuses his wife of treason, she must prove his innocence before the court, and the man does not need to provide any evidence of his words. In general, according to Islamic laws, the truth is often initially on the side of a man. For example, when a woman accuses her husband of treason, she must also provide evidence of his guilt.
The crowd, angered, really hated Soraya Manouchehri. The real truth of this woman’s life was just creepy. In front of her fellow villagers and relatives, she was simply stoned to death because of a far-fetched crime that she did not commit. It is terrible to imagine what kind of physical and mental torment she experienced.
Film adaptation
The biography of Soraya Manuchehri was filmed in 2008. World premiere of a painting entitled "Stoning Soraya M." or just "Stoning" took place at an international film festival in the Canadian city of Toronto.
The producers of the tape were Diane Hendricks, Todd Barnes and Jason Jones. The film was shot in two languages - English and Persian. The main role was played by an American actress of Iranian descent, Shohre Agdashlu.
She was born in Iran, moved with her parents to America, where she began acting in films at the age of 18. Her debut took place in the film "Guests of the Astoria Hotel." In parallel, she played roles on television.
Her popularity came after roles in Vadim Perelman’s drama “House of Sand and Fog”, Scott Derrickson’s horror film “The Six Demons of Emily Rose”, Paul Weitz’s musical comedy “The American Dream”, and Alejandro Agresti’s melodramatic fantasy “Lake House”. She also starred in a variety of TV shows, in particular, in Ambulance, Doctor House, Anatomy of Passion, Grimm, and Bones.
The role of Soraya became one of the most prominent in her creative biography.
Her partners on the site were Mozhan Marno, James Cavizel, Navid Negaban.
The plot of the picture
The plot of the film Nauraste is as close as possible to real events. The action takes place in Iran in the 80s of the XX century. Cavizel plays the role of journalist Freidon Saebjam, whose car just breaks into the wilderness of Iran. He asks the local mechanic for help in repairing the car, and while he is waiting for the end of work, he meets a woman named Zahra, and Agdashlu plays her.
Zahra wants to expose the slanderers, because of whom her niece died a few days ago. The husband slandered her, wanting to marry a 14-year-old girl. Mullah, who had the final say in the decision, is easily blackmailed by Ali, as he seeks to hide his prison past.
The village headman wants to confront the injustice that is happening before his eyes, but does not find the courage and will to do so. Sorayi is given a terrible sentence - stoning. They bury her waist-deep in the ground, and then they kill the whole village for a long and painfully. Zahra, who tells this story to a foreign journalist, has only hope. The correspondent will publicize her, the name of her relative will be cleared, the world will know about the injustice that has happened, the perpetrators will be punished.
Awards
The film received high marks from viewers and critics. In Ghent and Los Angeles, won the Audience Award, took third place at the Toronto Festival.
Agdashlu received the Satellite Awards in the nomination "Best Actress in a Drama Film".