Holy Spider had its world premiere at the last Cannes Film Festival where Zar Amir Ebrahimi picked up a Best Actress award. Since then it is touring festivals -from Jerusalem, Motovuun to Toronto.

Sold internationally by Wild Bunch, the Persian-language crime thriller was a massive hit with global buyers in Cannes. And crucially for an Oscar campaign, New-York based Utopia, co-founded by musician and director Robert Schwartzman, nephew of Francis Ford Coppola, is handling the film’s US distribution.

Commenting on Holy Spider’s Danish entry in the Oscar’s race for Best International. Feature, Claus Ladegaard, CEO of the Danish Film Institute who chairs the Oscar committee, said: "'Holy Spider shows a director with a strong artistic ambition who manages to tell an important story of misogyny, while simultaneously keeping his audience in suspense…The committee believes that Holy Spider, with its bold style and story, can go far in the Oscar race.”

Inspired by a true story, Holy Spider follows an Iranian reporter who descends into the dark underbelly of the holy city of Mashhad, to investigate the serial killings of prostitutes by a man who believes he is cleansing the streets of sinners.

In an interview with us held in Cannes, the director said his intention with the film was “not to make a serial killer movie but a movie about a serial killer society” - see interview CLICK HERE.

His film is all the more topical as Iran is currently the setting of massive protests against the recent death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody for not wearing a hijab properly. Abbasi himself has signed two petitions against Iran’s repression of woman and in support of the protests (See separate story CLICK HERE).

Holy Spider was produced by Jacob Jarek of Profile Pictures, in co-production with Sol Bondy of Germany’s One Two Films, and support from Nordisk Film & TV Fond.

This is Abbasi’s second Oscar entry after Border, which represented Sweden at the 2018 Academy Awards for Best Foreign-Language Film. The genre-bending movie landed and Oscar nomination for Best Hair and Make Up.

The Oscar nominations will be announced 24 January 24, 2023 and the ceremony in Los-Angeles will be held March 12, 2023.