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Holy Spider is a 2022 internationally co-produced Persian-language crime thriller film directed by Ali Abbasi. Based on the true story of Saeed Hanaei, a serial killer who targeted sex workers and killed 16 women from 2000 to 2001 in Mashhad, Iran, the film depicts a fictional female journalist investigating a serial killer.

Holy Spider
Release poster
Directed by	Ali Abbasi
Written by	Ali Abbasi Afshin Kamran Bahrami
Produced by	Sol Bondy Jacob Jarek Ali Abbasi
Starring	Mehdi Bajestani Zar Amir Ebrahimi
Cinematography	Nadim Carlsen
Edited by	Olivia Neergaard-Holm
Music by	Martin Dirkov
Production companies	Profile Pictures One Two Films
Distributed by	Alamode Film (Germany) TriArt Film (Sweden) Metropolitan Filmexport (France)
Release dates	22 May 2022 (2022-05-22) (Cannes) 13 July 2022 (2022-07-13) (France)
Running time	117 minutes
Countries	Denmark Germany Sweden France
Language	Persian

It was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, where it premiered on 22 May 2022.[1] Zar Amir Ebrahimi won the festival's Best Actress Award. The film was selected as the Danish entry for Best International Feature Film at the 95th Academy Awards.[2]

Cast

• Mehdi Bajestani as Saeed
• Zar Amir Ebrahimi as Rahimi
• Arash Ashtiani as Sharifi
• Forouzan Jamshidnejad as Fatima
• Alice Rahimi as Somayeh
• Sina Parvaneh as Rostami
• Sara Fazilat as Zinab
• Firouz Agheli as Haji
• Nima Akbarpour as Judge
• Mesbah Taleb as Ali

Production

Abbasi was a student in Tehran when the 2000–01 murders took place and was baffled by the conservative response that heralded Hanaei as a hero, and by how long it took for police to capture him.[3] Abbasi began writing versions of the film shortly after seeing Hanaei interviewed in Maziar Bahari's 2002 documentary And Along Came a Spider [fa].[4] Abbasi said, "In a really strange way, I felt sympathy for the guy, really against my own will. I think there was a psychotic element to the pleasure-seeking aspect of his murders, the twisted sexuality and whatnot, but there was also this strange innocence about him. It was more about how a society creates a serial killer."[3] Initial drafts followed the events more faithfully, but Abbasi eventually deviated from them and invented the character of a female journalist, as he felt the film should focus not only on the killer but on misogyny.[4][3] Abbasi said:

My intention was not to make a serial killer movie. I wanted to make a movie about a serial killer society. It is about the deep-rooted misogyny within Iranian society, which is not specifically religious or political but cultural. ... Instead of making another movie about different ways a man can kill and mutilate women, we want to underline the complexity of the issue and the stakes on different sides, especially on behalf of the victims.[4]

The development of the film officially started in 2016, which was then boosted by the success of Abbasi's 2018 Border.[5] The filmmakers initially tried to shoot in Iran,[4] but this was abandoned by 2019.[5] A plan was made to shoot in Jordan in early 2020, which had to be pushed back several times because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Then, in late 2020, they decided to move the production to Turkey, where COVID restrictions were looser, but they were stalled by Turkish authorities.[5] Abbasi has said this was because the Iranian government interfered.[4] The production then went back to Jordan, where filming finally commenced in May 2021 and lasted 35 days.[5]

Abbasi said Bajestani was taking an enormous risk by playing the killer.[4][3] Ebrahimi was initially involved in the film only as a casting director, but was cast as the journalist after an actor dropped out of the role.[4][3]

Release

In May 2022, Utopia acquired North American rights to the film.[6] Mubi acquired the film for the United Kingdom, Ireland, Latin America, and Malaysia.[7]

Reception

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 84% of 76 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.6/10. The website's consensus reads, "Holy Spider foregoes subtlety in favor of a viscerally outraged dramatization inspired by appalling actual events."[8] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 68 out of 100, based on 22 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[9]

Iranian government

On 29 May 2022, the Cinema Organization of Iran's Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance issued a statement condemning the Cannes festival for awarding the film the Best Actress award, calling it "an insulting and politically-motivated move". The statement compared the film to The Satanic Verses and said it "has insulted the beliefs of millions of Muslims and the huge Shiite population of the world".[10][11]

On 1 June 2022, Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance Mohammad Mehdi Esmaili said Iran "formally protested to the French government through the foreign ministry".[12] He also said, "If persons from inside Iran are involved with the film Holy Spider, they will surely receive punishment from the Cinema Organization of Iran."[13]

Director of Killer Spider

Ebrahim Irajzad, the director of Killer Spider, a 2020 Iranian film based on the same subject, accused Abbasi of plagiarism and circumventing Iranian censorship in order to make the film sooner, claiming he could have shot it in Iran had he been prepared to wait for government approval like Irajzad had to.[14][15]

Accolades

Award	Date of ceremony	Category	Recipient(s)	Result	Ref.
Cannes Film Festival	May 28, 2022	Palme d'Or	Ali Abbasi	Nominated	[16]
		Best Actress	Zar Amir Ebrahimi	Won
Jerusalem Film Festival	July 31, 2022	Best International Film	Holy Spider	Nominated	[17]
Miskolc International Film Festival	September 17, 2022	Emeric Pressburger Prize		Nominated	[18]
Fantastic Fest	September 27, 2022	Best Director	Ali Abbasi	Won	[19]
Montclair Film Festival	October 30, 2022	Fiction Feature	Holy Spider	Nominated	[20]
Seville European Film Festival	November 12, 2022	Golden Giraldillo		Nominated	[21]
		Best Actress	Zar Amir Ebrahimi	Won
European Film Awards	December 10, 2022	Best Film	Holy Spider	Pending	[22]
		Best Director	Ali Abbasi	Pending
		Best Screenwriter	Ali Abbasi and Afshin Kamran Bahrami	Pending
		Best Actress	Zar Amir Ebrahimi	Pending

See also

• List of submissions to the 95th Academy Awards for Best International Feature Film
• List of Danish submissions for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film

References

External links

• Holy Spider at IMDb

На других языках

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[de] Holy Spider

Holy Spider (im Französischen auch Les Nuits de Mashhad) ist ein Thriller von Ali Abbasi, der im Mai 2022 bei den Filmfestspielen in Cannes seine Premiere feierte, wo er im Hauptwettbewerb um die Goldene Palme konkurrierte. Im Juli 2022 kam der Film in die französischen Kinos. Holy Spider spielt in Maschhad, die als heiligste Stadt des Iran gilt. Die hier Nachforschungen anstellende Journalistin Rahimi wird von Sahra Amir Ebrahimi gespielt. Holy Spider wurde von Dänemark als Beitrag für die Oscarverleihung 2023 als bester Internationaler Film eingereicht.

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- [en] Holy Spider

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[ru] Убийца «Святой паук»

«Убийца „Святой паук“» или «Священный паук» (англ. Holy Spider) — художественный фильм режиссёра Али Аббаси, премьера которого состоялась в мае 2022 года на Каннском кинофестивале. Главную роль в картине сыграла Зара Амир Эбрахими, получившая приз фестиваля как лучшая актриса.

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