I just wanted quickly to share something personal. I was only ten years old when my father was stabbed to death twenty six times in his chest, but this past two years working on editing it was as if I relived with my father and I built memories that I never had with him and I saw footages that I had never seen from him. And for me everyday it was as if I was living with him; he was in our very office in our very home. And I was reminded daily that in this country you know peoples give their lives and sometimes we forget what we have; forget that when we raise our hands we don’t really appreciate it we take it as granted. So I just wanted to encourage you and ask for you to pray for countries like Iran and other third world countries and also pray because prayer really helps and we touched it and it’s not just a cliché thing that I am saying, but prayers really do work. Thank you! Andre Hovsepian, 23 years old

There are moments so beautiful and compelling, that it almost diminishes their value to try to share them through a video clip. A clip does not portray the electricity in the air, or do justice to the tenderness of emotions shared by men attempting to explain something so precious to them that it has defined their very life.

This is one of those moments—a brief window into the love of two sons for their martyred father.

Nonetheless, I am posting this clip—limited as it is—if only to urge families to watch this extraordinarily important film about true Christian heroism and martyrdom, as told by the devoted sons whose father was murdered by Islamic leaders to silence his proclamation of the Gospel. A Cry from Iran won the Jubilee Award for Best Documentary at the 2007 SAICFF, and it remains one of the films we are most proud of in the history of this festival.

(To view this video clip, you must have QuickTime 7 installed.)

Story Summary: An Islamic judge in the north of Iran condemned a zealous Christian convert from Islam, Mehdi Dibaj, to death. His crime was apostasy. Dibaj had already served ten years in prison. Haik Hovsepian, the leader of Evangelical Christians of Iran, chose to speak out and launch an international campaign for Dibaj’s sentence to be overturned. Haik’s campaign was successful, and Dibaj was released only a few days before his execution date. But there was a price to pay. On January 19, 1994, Haik Hovsepian disappeared. Twelve days later his corpse was identified by his son. The body had been stabbed 26 times. He was not the last to be martyred. Since then several Christians have been brutally tortured and put to death.

This is the untold story of their sacrifices, courage, commitment, and faith.