Iran rejects Cannes film award as ‘biased, political’

Last week’s Cannes award for a film about a serial killer who attacked sex workers in an Iranian Shia shrine city was rejected by Iran on Monday as ‘biased and political’

Iranian Zar Amir Ebrahimi won the Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival on Saturday for her performance in the film “Holy Spider”, directed by Danish-Iranian Ali Abbassi.

Ebrahimi, who went into exile following a smear campaign over her love life, has won awards for her portrayal of a journalist trying to solve the serial murders of sex workers in the Iranian holy city of Mashhad.

Iran’s Cinema Organization, affiliated with the Culture Ministry, slammed the move, accusing the festival of “committing a biased and political act by praising a fake and disgusting film”.

The film presents “a distorted image of Iranian society and openly insults Shia beliefs”, the organization said in an official statement.

He said the film “follows the same path as Salman Rushdie in ‘The Satanic Verses,'” in reference to the Booker Prize-winning Indian-British-American novelist.

In 1989, Iran’s former supreme ruler, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, called Rushdie’s work “blasphemous” and issued a fatwa, or religious edict, calling for the author’s murder.

“Holy Spider” is inspired by the true story of a working-class man who killed sex workers in the early 2000s and became known as the “Spider Killer.”

The film, which was shot in Jordan, shows Iran’s second largest city with its web of spider-like streets leading to the shrine.

Its protagonist, Ebrahimi, started her career in Iran, but was ruined after a supposedly a** tape of her and her partner was posted online in 2006.