Ali Abbasi Says Cannes Shocker ‘Holy Spider’ Is Not Controversial, Despite Graphic Violence and Nudity

Manchester United fans were left questioning their own players once again after seeing Ralf Rangnick’s Austria impress for the second time in a week as they drew with France on Friday night.

Eric Dane is single, ready to mingle and receiving racy DMs…but not ones he’s particularly interested in.

Queen Latifah is getting candid about dealing with years of scrutiny about her weight — especially on one of her previous television shows.

Keith Richards has insisted that The Rolling Stones want to remain together for the forseeable future, as they embark on a tour celebrating their 60th year as a band.Speaking to The Sun‘s Bizarre column, Richards responded to a question about the band’s longevity. “Life’s just too interesting to die,” he said.

EXCLUSIVE: Ellen Wander’s Film Bridge International has sold shark survival thriller Maneater to a host of buyers during the Cannes market including Saban Films (North America, UK, Australia/NZ, Scandinavia and South Africa), Challan Films (Korea), Superfine Films (India), YouPlanet (Spain), ILY Films (France), Monolith (Poland), Suraya Filem (SE Asia), Blitz Film Group (Ex-Yugo), and Selim Ramia and Co. (Middle East).

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentMK2 Films has locked major territory deals on Leonor Serraille’s drama “Mother and Son” which world premiered in competition at the Cannes Film Festival and garnered strong reviews. “Mother and Son” charts the lives of a young African woman, Rose, and two of her four children, Jean and Ernest, who come to France from the Ivory Coast in the 1980s with high ideals.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief“Lendarys,” a big-budget family adventure animation film that is currently in production, scored a handful of pre-sales during the Cannes Market. Rights sales are handled by Hong Kong-, Paris and Los Angeles-based All Rights Entertainment.With a production budget of $30 million, the film is the directorial debut of Philippe Duchene and Jean-Baptiste Cuvelier.

“War Pony” wins Palm Dog AwardBrit the Silver Poodle, who stars in Riley Keough and Gina Gammell’s indigenous drama “War Pony,” took home the coveted Palm Dog collar, according to the Hollywood Reporter.The Palm Collar is awarded to the best performance by a canine or group of canines during the festival. The award consists of a leather dog collar with the term “PALM DOG.”Steve Pond, in his review of “War Pony” wrote, “Set on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota and co-written, co-produced and starring members of the Native American community, “War Pony” is unhurried, naturalistic and heartbreaking, taking its rhythms from the lives of characters in a situation where the lack of options can lead to desperation or to resignation.

Lucas’ bishop warns him of the dangers before he sets out to minister to a remote community of Icelanders in Cannes Un Certain Regard title Godland. “It’s easy to go mad there,” he explains at his Copenhagen dining table, steadily chewing his way through the fabulous feast in front of him. Iceland, where the sun never sets on summer nights, where the weather is extreme, the landscape broodingly monumental: just remember the apostles, “a group of lonely men,” the bishop advises as he wipes his mouth. Lucas (Elliott Crosset Hove) is not eating; one glance tells you he’s a priest of an ascetic bent.

As countries go, Iceland is probably one of the most fast-changing in terms of its biological make up, its intense volcanic activities reshaping its surface and contours at a speed fast enough to be perceived within a single generation. Paradoxically, it is also a place where time appears to stand still, with the sun omnipresent for half the year and absent for the rest.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentDanish-Iranian director Ali Abbasi’s boundary-pushing serial killer thriller “Holy Spider has been acquired by U.S. sales and distribution company Utopia for North America.Based on a real Iranian crime case, “Holy Spider” – which made a major splash when it premiered in the Cannes competition on Sunday – is about a family man named Saeed (Mehdi Bajestani) who becomes a serial killer as he embarks on his own religious quest to “cleanse” the holy Iranian city of Mashhad of street prostitutes. Pic chronicles a killing spree in the streets of Mashhad, where 16 prostitutes were found dead from 2000 to 2001.  A local journalist, Rahimi (Zar Amir-Ebrahimi), is trying to crack the case as she grows frustrated by the police’s apathy toward finding the murderer.

Lise Pedersen The top IEFTA (Intl. Film Talent Assn.) award for docs-in-progress at the Cannes Film Market’s documentary-focused industry sidebar Cannes Docs has gone to “Twice Colonized” by Lin Alluna.The film was developed by the Circle Women Doc Accelerator, a training program for female-identifying documentary filmmakers.The win marks a hat-trick for Circle since they started their partnership with Cannes Docs in 2020: previous IEFTA Docs-in-Progress Award laureates at the industry event include “Beauty of the Beast” by Anna Nemes, produced by Circle 2018 alumna Ágnes Horváth-Szabó, and “Cent’anni” by Circle 2020 alumna Maja Prelog, produced by Rok Biček.“Twice Colonized” tells the story of renowned Inuit lawyer Aaju Peter who has led a lifelong fight for the rights of her people.

Forbes). “I know we are human beings and that we are very complicated, and the power of art is that it knows no color. Because human beings, when they sit and watch art they want to feel less alone.

unleashed smoke bombs and unrolled a list of murdered women just before the world premiere of Ali Abbasi’s serial-killer drama “Holy Spider.” And if the demonstration’s cause was only too just, its context was all too uncommon, since these protesters were seemingly there to support, not oppose, Abbasi’s violent and disturbing film. To follow up his Un Certain Regard-winning “Border,” the Iran-born Denmark-based director has burrowed into a chilling bit of true-crime from his native country, reimagining the 2001 case of a religious fanatic who slaughtered 16 young women and using that premise to explore systemic misogyny writ large. He does so by turning the murder thriller upside down, telling a story where the killer’s identify is never in doubt and his intentions are always crystal clear, and where the greatest source of tension comes from wondering whether anyone in power will lift a finger to stop him. The killer in this case is middle-aged construction worker Saeed (Mehdi Bajestani).

#Cannes pic.twitter.com/VCEz0aI3BW“Holy Spider,” which screened on Sunday, was particularly overt in its discussion of violence against women, based on the true story of a serial killer who was supported by much of the public because he murdered prostitutes in the name of religion. It was not even made by a female filmmaker, but by the Iranian-born, Denmark-based Abbasi, whose last trip to Cannes was with the startling “Border,” which became known for its scene of troll sex.

Lise Pedersen Scandinavia is bringing talent old and new to the Cannes Film Market’s Cannes Docs sidebar this year, with a showcase of five feature length films-in-the-making pitched as part of the Scandinavian Showcase on Saturday.“Children of the Lowest Heaven”From Denmark, internationally acclaimed writer-director Birgitte Stærmose Mortensen (“Darling,” “Room 304”), who has been working on mini-series for HBO, Starz and Netflix for the past five years (“Industry” season 2, “The Spanish Princess,” “In From the Cold” and “The English Game”), presented “Children of the Lowest Heaven” (“Ønskeliv”), a hybrid doc set in Kosovo.Inspired by her short “Out of Love” (2009), about a group of children living in poverty in post-war Pristina, it picks up where she left off with the characters, who are now young adults, still fighting to survive in one of Europe’s poorest nations. It’s about the long-term effects of war, and what it means to live a life in poverty.

Ramin Setoodeh Executive Editor“Holy Spider,” a gritty drama about a real-life Iranian serial killer, stunned the Cannes Film Festival at its premiere on Sunday afternoon, earning a thunderous seven-minute standing ovation and bringing a jolt of electricity to what’s been a sleepy festival so far.The film, from Iranian-Danish director Ali Abbasi (“Border”), chronicles a killing spree in the streets of the religious city of Mashhad, where 16 prostitutes were found dead from 2000 to 2001.  A local journalist, Rahimi (Zar Amir-Ebrahimi), is trying to crack the case as she grows frustrated by the police’s apathy toward finding the murderer. But in one of many twists in this drama, the identity of the serial killer is revealed early on — he’s a war veteran named Saeed (Mehdi Bajestani), a seemingly normal family man who spends his nights picking up women on his motorcycle and brutally strangling them in his home as a religious cleansing ritual.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentThough Iran is in the throes of a deep economic crisis, battered by hard-line politics and a mismanaged pandemic, it’a shaping up to be a great year for Iranian cinema.Paradoxically, Iran’s cinematic landscape is bursting with powerful, fresh films likely to make an international splash just as talks between Tehran and world powers continue to be deadlocked on reviving the nuclear deal that could lift the country’s crippling sanctions that block exports.This filmmaking fervor is reflected in the fact that Iranian pics have scored two Cannes competition berths, plus one in the Cannes Critics’ Week, which marks Iran’s first presence in this section dedicated to first and second works in almost two decades.