A man killed women he deemed 'immoral' — an Iranian film fictionalizes the story
Holy Spider is about a serial killer. The film follows a man who preys on female sex workers because he believes it's his God-given duty to "wage a jihad against vice."
The film's release came at a moment of amplified state violence against civilians, particularly women, in Iran. And it put Iranian-Danish filmmaker Ali Abbasi in a complicated position.
"It's a contradictory place for me to be," he told NPR. Abbasi was not interested in making an on-the-nose political movie, and he's wary of seeming opportunistic. "But I cannot completely leave it," he said.
Making a "Persian Noir"
Abbasi was a university student in Tehran when he first heard about the real-life case that inspired . A veteran of the Iran-Iraq war, Saeed Hanaei was dubbed the "Spider Killer" .
