New Wave of Iranian Cinema Set to Burst Out in Cannes

variety.com:

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. “What everybody is so pleased about is that Cannes, fortunately, is now representing the young generation of Iranian filmmakers,” said international distributor Mohammad Attebai, who heads Tehran-based company Iranian Independents.Finally, after a decade of just the usual suspects — those being Abbas Kiarostami, Asghar Farhadi, Jafar Panahi and Mohammad Rasoulov — “at last they are selecting other [Iranian] filmmakers,” said Attebai, who is a former Venice fest consultant.Case in point is “Holy Spider,” by Iran-born, Denmark-based Ali Abbasi, who was the toast of Cannes in 2018 with his genre-defying “Border,” which won the top prize in Un Certain Regard.Based on a real Iranian crime case, “Holy Spider,” which premieres in the Cannes competition on Sunday, is about a family man named Saeed who becomes a serial killer as he embarks on his own religious quest — to “cleanse” the holy Iranian city of Mashhad of street prostitutes.