Double win for Holy Spider at Stockholm Int’l Film Festival

The Danish Oscar entry Holy Spider produced by Denmark’s Profile Pictures with Germany’s One Two Films was among 19 international films competing.

The jurors including actor Alexej Manvelov (Top Dog), writer/director Nathalie Álvarez Mesén (Clara Sola), and producer/director Erika Wasserman (The Year I Started Masturbating) said Holy Spider is a “ground-breaking film that is done not only with enormous courage but with mastery, that leaves us breathless.”

The crime thriller follows an Iranian reporter (Zar Amir Ebrahimi-Best Actress in Cannes) as she investigates serial killings of prostitutes in the dark underbelly of the holy city of Mashhad in Iran.

During the festival, Abbasi took part in a demonstration in support of Iranian women and filmmakers, together with his counterparts Tarik Saleh, Rodja Sekersöz and Lisa Farzaneh.

Holy Spider is due to open nationwide in Sweden January 20, 2023 via TriArt.

Iceland’s Guðmundur Arnar Guðmundsson, also took home an award for Best Screenplay for his coming-of age drama Beautiful Beings produced by Join Motion Pictures.

Both Holy Spider and Beautiful Beings were supported by Nordisk Film & TV Fond.

Other prize winners were the following:

• Best Debut- Best Debut: Autobiography by Makbul Mubarak
• Best Actress: Mother and Son - Annabelle Lengronne
• Best Cinematography: Balthazar Lab for La Jauria
• Best Documentary All the Beauty and the Bloodshed by Laura Poitras
• Honorary mention: Pilar Palomero for La Maternal
• Best Short Film: File by Sonia K. Hadad
• FIPRESCI Award: World War III by Houman Seyyedi
• 1KM Film: SaraKlara Hellström
• 1KM FILM Honorary Mention: André Vaara
• Zalando Rising Star: Sara Shirpey

Over 130 films from 50 countries were selected for the 33^rd Stockholm Int’l Film Festival which closed on Sunday.