Saeed Hanaei: Last News

Clayton Davis Any best picture lineup of any industry organization that does not include A24’s “Close,” Utopia’s “Holy Spider” and the doc “Sr.,” which is still seeking a distributor, shall be declared null and void…at least in my mind.  In Telluride, all three films played like gangbusters. “Holy Spider,” which premiered at Cannes and won best actress for Zar Amir Ebrahimi, is looking likely to be Denmark’s submission for international feature (although it’s in Persian, it has Danish producers). Based on the true story of Saeed Hanaei (played by Mehdi Bajestani), a serial killer who targeted sex workers and killed 16 women from 2000 to 2001 in Mashhad, Iran, the film tells a fictional account of a female journalist (Ebrahimi) who investigates the case. 

The second day of Dublin’s Storyhouse screenwriting festival kicked off with a bang on Friday as established writer-directors Ali Abbasi (Holy Spider), Mounia Akl (Costa Brava Lebanon) and Stacey Gregg (Ballywalter) all discussed at length the process of how they achieve their best work and how they balance the writer-director relationship. 

Welcome to Deadline’s International Disruptors, a feature where we’ll shine a spotlight on key executives and companies outside of the U.S. shaking up the offshore marketplace. This week, we’re talking with German indie producer Sol Bondy of One Two Films. Bondy, whose credits include Angry Indian Goddesses and The Tale, most recently produced Iranian crime thriller Holy Spider which is Denmark’s submission to the 2023 Academy Awards and he tells us how challenging it was to get this impactful project off the ground. 

Holy Spider breakout Zar Amir Ebrahimi will head the jury of the Nordic Competition at the 46th Göteborg Film Festival, running from January 27 – February 5.

“I always had a very specific sense of urgency with this idea,” said Holy Spider director Ali Abbasi of wanting to make a film noir based on the true story of the “Spider Killer” Saeed Hanaei, who saw himself as on a mission from God as he killed 16 women between 2000 and 2001.

The big winner at the Stockholm International Film Festival 2022 was Holy Spider, directed by Swedish-Danish-Iranian Ali Abbasi.

Denmark has selected Ali Abbasi’s Cannes-winning title Holy Spider as its official submission to this year’s International Feature Oscar race.

Cannes Film Festival red carpet to highlight violence against women ahead of the premiere of a film about the murder of sex workers.Agence France-Presse reports that Les Colleuses were behind the protest in which approximately 12 women set off black smoke grenades on the steps in front of the Palais des Festivals before the screening of Holy Spider yesterday (May 22).They carried a banner with the first names of 129 women killed in France since the last time the film festival was held, as The Guardian reports further. The protest happened before actors and crew members for the Ali Abbasi-directed movie had arrived.In the film a female journalist investigates the serial killing of sex workers in the Iranian holy city of Mashhad.

Matt Donnelly Senior Film WriterA group of women protestors staged a dramatic scene at the Cannes Film Festival on Sunday, releasing plumes of smoke from handheld devices and displaying a long banner for the global press.At the premiere of “Holy Spider,” director Ali Abbasi’s female-centered thriller, roughly 12 women in formalwear gathered on the famed stairs of the festival’s Grand Palais with raised fists — filling the space with thick black smoke and holding a long scroll of women’s names.Security seemed unfazed by the event, allowing the protestors to be filmed and photographed. One insider close to the production said the protest was not a coordinated stunt to promote the film, about a journalist who travels to the Iranian holy city of Mashhad to investigate a serial killer murdering sex workers.