‘Holy Spider’ Filmmaker Says His Thriller “It’s Not A Movie About Women’s Conditions In Iran” – Cannes

deadline.com:

“We didn’t do the movie to highlight women’s conditions in Iran, we didn’t do the movie to do activist work,” exclaimed Swedish-Iranian filmmaker Ali Abbasi about his latest in competition Cannes Film Festival title, Holy Spider at the pic’s press conference this morning.Ironic, given that at last night’s world premiere of the pic, a protest broke out on the red carpet of the Palais comprised of women clad in black, who let off smoke grenades and unfurled a banner with names of women killed by men in France in cases of domestic violence.

A spokesperson for the documentary Riposte Féministe claimed credit for the protest, that pic centering around feminist collages in France who denounce feminicides.

Holy Spider follows Saeed, a serial killer, who at home is a meek husband and doting dad. However, when they go out of town once a week, he is hell bent on ridding the Iranian holy city of Mashhad of prostitutes.

His mission 200 victims. A courageous, driven young female reporter (Zar Amir-Ebrahimi) is on his tail to catch him. In the early 2000s, there was a serial killer in Mashhad who murdered 16 street prostitutes.