In a Denver bookstore 15 years ago, Cyrus Nowrasteh, an Iranian-American television screenwriter, happened upon “The Stoning of Soraya M.” The book, originally published in French in 1990 as “La Femme Lapidée,” depicted the mid-1980s execution of a rural Iranian woman falsely accused of adultery. Having not been to Iran since before the revolution of 1979, Mr. Nowrasteh was moved by the book’s spare ­account of postrevolutionary ­injustice and brutality. Last June, long after deciding that “the story screamed movie,” Mr. Nowrasteh released “The ­Stoning of Soraya M.” in American movie theaters to critical acclaim.
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