Zahra Amir Ebrahimi talks about the “Holy Spider” Oscar Paz, Iranian government

Zar Amir Ebrahimi (aka Zahra) should enjoy the glow of winning Best Actress at Cannes for ‘Holly Spider’. Instead, she’s in a reflexive mood when you’re sitting with her diverse For an interview on Zoom, she recounts a tumultuous 16 years that culminated in landing a prominent role in one of the best-reviewed films of 2022.

But before the appearance of the red carpet and the premiere, the career of this Iranian actress was derailed and her personal life was upended after the release of a sex tape. As a punishment, she faced the prospect of stoning and flogging in her home country. Despite all she has gone through, Ebrahimi and Hollywood have persevered.

Ironically, Ebrahimi was not supposed to appear in the movie “Holy Spider.”

She signed on to be the casting director for director Ali Abbasi as he assembled the cast of “Holly Spider,” which tells the true story of Saeed Hanai, nicknamed “The Killer Spider,” who targeted sex workers in 2000 and 2001, a believer who was cleansing the city of moral corruption. Ebrahimi met with nearly 500 people for three years to fill the cast. These included the famous stage actor Mehdi Baghistani, who plays the psychopathic Saeed, and the first instrumentalist Arash Ashtiani as a local Sharifian news reporter, who receives calls from the killer about the whereabouts of his new victim. However, Abbasi has been struggling to find the right person to play Rahimi, a journalist who descends into the dark bottom of the Iranian holy city of Mashhad to investigate the murders. At various points, Ebrahimi, who had acted in television series in her country before being pressured to flee, expressed an interest in Abbasi in playing the role. But he would reject her suggestion, telling her, “You are too soft. This journalist, I see, is not you.”

In the end, they found a promising Iranian actress, but a few days before filming began in Jordan, she withdrew from the project, fearing that the film would be controversial. Iran has a buzz in cinemas (Asghar Farhadi has won two long-running international Oscars for the country in recent years). However, it also has strict censorship, which prevented the filming of “Holly Spider” in Iran due to the country’s rules, among which, it is not permissible to photograph women without the hijab.


“It looks at the dark side of the soul,” says Abbasi of “Holly Spider,” which was announced as Denmark’s international premiere for this year’s Oscars.

The director was also interested in exploring the social conditions and reactions that allowed Said to justify the killing spree using religion. The repressive society explored in “Holy Spider” was all too familiar to Ebrahimi, who fled Iran in 2006 after becoming the center of media attention for his appearance in a sex tape. It was an intimate encounter between two accommodating adults that was filmed privately in 2004. Then two years later, a friend named Ebrahimi tells her that a video is circulating online, and that the woman he’s showing appears to be her.

Participation in a sexually explicit tape is a serious crime under Iranian law. Ebrahimi denied her involvement at the time to the local authorities and media. “I had to deny; otherwise, they would have put me in jail or even worse,” she says.

Iranian authorities accused her of leaking the tape herself in order to become “more famous,” something she says she did not do. However, having now left Iran, for the first time, Ebrahimi admits that she is the woman in the video. According to Ebrahimi, authorities eventually found the man who leaked the tape, an actor in Iran whose name she refused to give. This man was sentenced to six years in prison after police discovered an extensive archive on his computer of photos, videos and conversations with girls asking for nude pictures. However, three months after his sentence, he was released, gaining more fame than before. Iranian citizens even raised money for him after he was diagnosed with cancer and sent him to Germany for special treatment.

“I think people appreciated what he did,” says Ebrahimi, crying. “They let him work. They let him out of prison. I was flogged.”

On the day Ebrahimi’s trial for his participation in the sex tape began, a second case was opened against the actress. Police and officials began questioning Brahimi’s former colleagues and friends, requesting pictures of her in any sexual setting or even simply touching another man. As part of this investigation, prosecutors planned to present five men who would testify that they had premarital relations with Ebrahimi. Before their court appearance, Ebrahimi fled Iran and never returned. The government found her guilty in absentia and was sentenced to 10 years in prison and 99 lashes with a leather belt, and she was banned from appearing in Iranian films and television. In response to the scandal, a bill was passed by Iran’s parliament soon after, making the production of sexually explicit media, even for private consumption, a crime punishable by death.

“Holy spider”

Courtesy Everett Group

After its debut at Cannes, Utopia bought the US distribution rights to “Holly Spider” and screened the thriller at several festivals, including Telluride and Toronto. Ebrahimi says she is enjoying the experience after the long struggle she has endured and hopes her ordeal will inspire others.

“We have a cultural problem in Iran,” she says. “If I have a message for any girl or boy, around the world or in Iran – talk, talk, we need to talk.”



(Visited 30 times, 1 visits today)

Related posts