Panorama: Holy Spider
After the screening, join us for a discussion with artist, educator and activist Neda Moridpour; UMASS Dartmouth Professor Pamela Karimi; and others TBA.
"My intention was not to make a serial killer movie. I wanted to make a movie about a serial killer society. It is about the deep-rooted misogyny within Iranian society, which is not specifically religious or political but cultural." — Filmmaker Ali Abbasi
Anchored by a stunning lead performance by Zar Amir-Ebrahimi (who won the Best Actress Prize at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival), Ali Abbasi's Holy Spider offers a potent mix of suspense and social commentary. The film is based on the true story of the ‘Spider Killer’ Saeed Hanaei, who saw himself as on a mission from God as he killed 16 women between 2000 and 2001; Amir-Ebrahimi plays a female journalist who travels to the Iranian holy city of Mashhad to investigate him.
About Neda Moridpour
Neda Moridpour is an Iranian artist, educator, organizer, and co-founder of two artist-activist collaboratives, LOUDER THAN WORDS and [P]Art Collective. Her practice crosses disciplines and boundaries to investigate cycles of violence that leads to dislocation, gender, and racial inequity while establishing dialogue and mobilizing communities. Moridpour is a Professor of the Practice at School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University and is currently a SELECT (Social Emotional Learning for Equity and Civic Teaching) Faculty Fellow at Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life at Tufts University (2022-2023).
About Pamela Karimi
Pamela Karimi is a Professor of Art History at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. She is the author of Alternative Iran: Contemporary Art and Critical Spatial Practice (Stanford University Press, 2022) and Domesticity and Consumer Culture in Iran (Routledge, 2013).
