Iranian actress as a defiant witness

Shohreh Aghdashloo's face will haunt you long after you walk out of the Iranian-born actress' stunning new film, The Stoning of Soraya M.

Based on French-Iranian journalist Freidoune Sahebjam's 1994 best-seller and directed by Cyrus Nowrasteh, Stoning is the disturbing true story of a young woman stoned to death in a rural village in Iran after being falsely accused of adultery.

A devastating indictment of the Islamic Republic's treatment of women, the film's first scenes establish an emotional intensity that never lets down.

Aghdashloo, who plays Soraya's bereft aunt Zahra, kneels down beside a stream, gathering what look like human bones. Framed by an unruly wave of thick black hair, her face is wild. Twisted with anguish. Mad with grief.

After lovingly washing what we later discover are Soraya's bones, Zahra piles them up in a small burial mound. (Because of her alleged sin, Soraya was denied burial and left to be eaten by wild dogs.)

Aghdashloo's powerhouse on-screen presence belies her petite 5-foot-5 stature. Dressed in an elegant and simple black dress, the actress, 57, best known for her Oscar-nominated role in 2003's House of Sand and Fog and her controversial turn as a terrorist mother in 24, played the gracious host in her small suite in the Sofitel in Center City.

Events in Iran, where unprecedented numbers have protested the reelection of hard-line president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have eerily shadowed the film's message and imagery.

Critics have remarked on the parallels between Soraya's bloody face and that of Neda Agha-Soltan, the 26-year-old woman shot during a demonstration five days before Stoning opened on Friday.

Aghdashloo said she was torn between hope and despair.

"I am ever so excited and happy and anxious - mixed feeling I would call it. It's extraordinary that [the people] have decided that at last they want to take their destiny in their own hands. . . . And 40 percent of the protesters are women, which is unprecedented." She said she was devastated by the authorities' violent response.

Born in 1952 to an affluent family of intellectuals, Aghdashloo began acting in the early to mid-1970s, a period she describes as an Iranian "renaissance of creativity [powered by] young directors, playwrights and filmmakers. . . . We used to call Tehran the Paris of the Middle East."

After several years in Britain, where she earned her college degree in international relations, Aghdashloo came to America in a touring production of Rainbow, an acclaimed chronicle of the Iranian Revolution.

After taking guest roles on TV shows and some supporting film parts, Aghdashloo's life changed dramatically when she was cast in Vadim Perelman's House of Sand and Fog opposite Ben Kingsley and Jennifer Connelly, which garnered her numerous awards and an Oscar nod.

"That changed everything. Suddenly the industry realizes you're an actor," she said, not without a hint of irony. "I thought this would be my last film. Since then, I have been in nine films and two successful TV series," including her remarkably nuanced role in 24 as a mother caught between her love for her son and her political ideology.

Aghdashloo, who has campaigned for women's rights in the Middle East, said she was born to play Zahra in the new film.

"When he first called me about the role, the first thing I told the producer was, 'Where have you been for the last few years? I've been waiting for you,' " she said.

The protesters' courage and their demand for rights, she said, embody Zahra's spirit - and her despair.

"Zahra is a product of the shah's reign," said Aghdashloo, whose memory of life under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who was himself no great champion of human rights, is surprisingly idyllic.

"She's a strong woman who risks her life to save Soraya's life. On the other hand, she has nothing to lose. Still, she still ends up losing" her niece, Aghdashloo said in her low, smoky voice. "That's how it works in a male-dominated society in which women have no rights and no voice."

Aghdashloo said Stoning was not unlike the story of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. "He wanted another woman and so she . . . lost her head," Aghdashloo said.

"But that was happening 500 years ago - not today. What I don't get are countries like Iran, where they are enriching uranium on the one hand . . . and on the other hand they are stoning people to death - the most primitive, barbaric method of punishment."

A few minutes later, Aghdashloo's face is buried in her hands. She's trying to describe her experience watching a video from the late 1980s that shows a real stoning.

"People have complained that the stoning scene in our film is too much," she said. "But this was an hour and a half. It was two young men, 18 and 19, who . . . were being stoned for being homosexuals.

"It took an hour and a half," she repeated. "First, they were given 80 lashes each . . . " she breaks off.

"Every time I think about it, I shudder. Currently, there are 10 people on death row [in Iran] condemned to stoning."

The actress said her next film, Mona's Dream, tackles Iran's persecution of Baha'is. It's the true story of a 16-year-old Baha'i girl hanged in 1983.

She said that like Stoning, "it's not a political movie, it's a humanitarian movie."

Aghdashloo admits that Stoning may reinforce prejudices that Iranians are barbaric.

"Of course there is always the fear of getting people confused. . . . But at the end of the day, when I think about that woman sitting in her cell waiting to die, I'd rather go with that woman than worry about image."