Utopia Takes U.S. Rights to Ali Abbasi’s Iranian Serial Killer Thriller ‘Holy Spider’

Neringa Kažukauskaite The second season of the German TV series “Sisi,” which follows the life of Empress Elisabeth of Austria (also known as Sisi), is currently shooting in Lithuania, Film New Europe reports.The series is produced by Story House Pictures GmbH for RTL+ and serviced by the Lithuanian company UAB Nordic Productions. The shoot is benefiting from Lithuanian Film Center’s tax incentives.The six-part second season is directed by Sven Bohse (“Dark Woods”) and Miguel Alexandre (“Spy City”), and it is written by Elena Hell, Svenja Rasocha, Robert Krause and Andreas Gutzeit.More than 100 Lithuanians are part of the international team, including production designer Algirdas Garbačiauskas and costume designer Daiva Petrulytė.

EXCLUSIVE: GKIDS, the acclaimed producer and distributor of animation for adult and family audiences, announced it has acquired North American theatrical, home video, and EST rights to the capstone finale film Evangelion: 3.0 + 1.01 Thrice Upon A Time. The highly anticipated fourth and final installment of the new theatrical “Rebuild” editions of the franchise.

Johnny Knoxville and his wife are splitting up.

“What is dead may never die, but rises again harder and stronger.” That line from HBO‘s “Game Of Thrones” applies to the network’s plethora of spin-off shows to the hit fantasy drama currently in development. And HBO has a lot of “Game Of Thrones” stuff they’re working on right now beyond “House Of The Dragon,” premiering this August.

Director Nicholas Stoller is one of the more prolific modern comedic filmmakers, having helmed pics such as “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” “Get Him To The Greek,” “The Five-Year Engagement,” “Neighbors,” “Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising,” and the upcoming Judd Apatow-produced “Bros” that stars/co-written by Billy Eichner.

The KarJenner krew continues to grow! And this time it’s not new babies entering the world, but new family members in the form of Travis Barker‘s own lovely crew being added to the brood!!

LOT of worthy candidates.It may take most of the time between now and the June 27 deadline for voters to simply wade through the huge number of submissions; one can only hope they’ve already taken the time to watch more than just the usual suspects.Other notable lessons from the Emmy ballots:

Russia’s foreign minister on Wednesday banned around 121 Australians, including out gay ABC journalist Patricia Karvelas, from entering the country “indefinitely” over what it termed a “Russophobic agenda”. The list included prominent Australian journalists, mining magnates Gina Rinehart and Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest, ABC chairperson Ita Buttrose and South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas.The foreing ministry’s statement said that “entry to the Russian Federation for these persons is closed on an indefinite basis in response to the growing sanctions of the Australian government, which apply to an increasing number of Russian citizens – both officials and their families, as well as representatives of the business community and the media.”I’m not sanctioned in Australia so I can bring you @RNBreakfast https://t.co/QT0ZaqAWEd #auspol pic.twitter.com/pYOAxFwRbF— Patricia Karvelas (@PatsKarvelas) June 16, 2022The RN Breakfast host said she woke up to the news of being added to Russia’s ‘stop-list’ early in the morning.  “Waking to news of being sanctioned by Russia at 3:30am was a hallucination reality dreamscape I didn’t imagine for my Friday,” Karvelas posted on . Karvelas also posted a video from the ABC studio.

With temperatures across the country set to continue to soar, the hot weather may be a welcome relief for some but staying safe in the heat is more important than ever. And for people with the skin condition eczema, the rising temperatures bring their own challenges and spending time in the sun can sometimes worsen the condition. Fortunately, there are steps that people with eczema can take to help minimise any potential triggers - and they’re easier to adopt than you might think.

Good Morning Britain's Richard Madeley has revealed his daughter Chloe's due date. Appearing on Loose Women he said: "She was due on the 5th of August and they've moved it forward to the 7th of August." The presenter, 66, shared the news on the ITV show and told the panellists: "She's in France at the moment, she's coming up to 34 weeks". Chloe, 34, announced in March that she was having a baby girl with husband husband James Haskell.

Love Island viewers have been left baffled at Gemma Owen's lack of eye contact on the show. But a dating expert has said it could well be because the 19 year old is "hiding a secret." It is widely known that Gemma's dad is famous footballer Michael Owen, but this information is yet to be found out by her fellow islanders.

Over 20 years since Roald Dahl’s classic book Matilda was adapted on the big screen, the popular children’s book is set to be given a on-screen makeover once again. As part of a new Netflix project, Matilda the Musical is set to hit our screens later this year and features a stellar lineup including Emma Thompson as the nasty teacher Miss Trunchbull.

Kate Middleton and Prince William led the royal family at Royal Ascot today. Kate looked incredible for her first day at Royal Ascot this year as she donned a black and white polka dot dress with a high neck and long sleeves.

Vince McMahon has “voluntarily stepped back” from his roles as chairman and CEO of the WWE.

There are even more stars getting ready to Scream.

Matt Lucas stunned BBC viewers with his dramatic weight loss after he appeared on The One Show on Thursday night.

Iceland is helping shoppers keep costs low during the ongoing cost of living crisis by slashing the prices of hundreds of everyday essential items.

Four wards in Falkirk Community Hospital that closed due to fire safety fears will not reopen, it has been confirmed.

A jobs fair coming to Irvine next week will have as many as 300 new roles up for grabs.

Jim Goodwin has revealed what still needs to happen before Calvin Ramsay ’s move to Liverpool can go through.

robotexts were sent to voters highlighting State Sen. Shevrin Jones’ (D-West Park) sexual orientation and his inability, despite surviving COVID-19, to donate plasma that might help others suffering from the disease.

finally be released on July 29.But mere hours later, Drake deigned to try and one-up Queen Bey by announcing that his own seventh studio LP, “Honestly, Nevermind,” would be dropping at midnight. Just when it seemed as if it was all Harry Styles’ world, in one day, two of music’s biggest stars just made summer a lot hotter.“Honestly, Nevermind” — and a wild video for the first single “Falling Back,” featuring a parade of women lining up to be his brides — arrives just nine months after Drake’s “Certified Lover Boy,” which, despite the success of “Way 2 Sexy” and “Girls Want Girls,” felt like somewhat of a disappointment by his standards. And this 14-track LP is a radical reset for the 35-year-old artist born Aubrey Drake Graham.It’s a full-blown a-bop face from hip-hop to house.

Naman Ramachandran Streamer and distributor MUBI has acquired Ali Abbasi’s Cannes Film Festival competition title “Holy Spider” for the U.K., Ireland, Latin America and Malaysia. The film will be released theatrically followed by an exclusive MUBI streaming release. The film follows family man Saeed as he embarks on his own religious quest — to “cleanse” the holy Iranian city of Mashhad of immoral and corrupt street prostitutes.

MUBI has acquired rights to Cannes hit Holy Spider for the UK, Ireland, LatAm and Malaysia.

review of the film for TheWrap, Ben Croll wrote that Abbasi with “Holy Spider” turns the murder thriller “upside down, telling a story where the killer’s identify is never in doubt and his intentions are always crystal clear, and where the greatest source of tension comes from wondering whether anyone in power will lift a finger to stop him.”Abbasi wrote “Holy Spider” with Afshin Kamran Bahrami. Sol Bondy and Jacob Jarek produced the film.

EXCLUSIVE: Utopia has finalized its North American deal for Cannes Competition pic Holy Spider, the noir thriller from Danish-Iranian filmmaker Ali Abbasi. We told you the deal was all but there a couple of days ago.

A drastic departure from his prior films “Border” and “Shelley,” Ali Abbasi’s newest film, “Holy Spider,” draws inspiration from the 2000-2001 crimes and subsequent trial of Saeed Hanaei (played here by Mehdi Bajestani), a war veteran-turned-serial killer in the Iranian city of Mashhad who murdered 16 sex workers, claiming that he was cleansing the holy city of sinners and corruption in the name of Islam.

Forbes). “I know we are human beings and that we are very complicated, and the power of art is that it knows no color. Because human beings, when they sit and watch art they want to feel less alone.

“We didn’t do the movie to highlight women’s conditions in Iran, we didn’t do the movie to do activist work,” exclaimed Swedish-Iranian filmmaker Ali Abbasi about his latest in competition Cannes Film Festival title, Holy Spider at the pic’s press conference this morning.

EXCLUSIVE: Holy Spider, the Ali Abbasi-directed Iranian serial killer thriller, is nearing a deal for U.S. rights with Utopia, the U.S. sales and distribution firm owned by Robert Schwartzman and Cole Harper. The provocative Cannes Competition film premiered today on the Croisette to strong applause.

Ramin Setoodeh Executive Editor“Holy Spider,” a gritty drama about a real-life Iranian serial killer, stunned the Cannes Film Festival at its premiere on Sunday afternoon, earning a thunderous seven-minute standing ovation and bringing a jolt of electricity to what’s been a sleepy festival so far.The film, from Iranian-Danish director Ali Abbasi (“Border”), chronicles a killing spree in the streets of the religious city of Mashhad, where 16 prostitutes were found dead from 2000 to 2001.  A local journalist, Rahimi (Zar Amir-Ebrahimi), is trying to crack the case as she grows frustrated by the police’s apathy toward finding the murderer. But in one of many twists in this drama, the identity of the serial killer is revealed early on — he’s a war veteran named Saeed (Mehdi Bajestani), a seemingly normal family man who spends his nights picking up women on his motorcycle and brutally strangling them in his home as a religious cleansing ritual.

Sometimes it hardly matters whether we know a story is based on truth or not. Watching Ali Abbasi’s thunderously damning Holy Spider, on the other hand, it drives a wedge into your mind knowing that a serial killer really did terrorize the Iranian holy city of Mashhad in the early 2000s, that he killed 16 street prostitutes, that there were police who conspired to help him escape and that there were people in Iran — a lot of people, he keeps assuring his family — who were on the murderer’s side. He was doing God’s work.

stormed the Cannes red carpet donned in body paint to disrupt the “Three Thousand Years of Longing” premiere, a new protest erupted at the start of the red carpet for competition title “Holy Spider,” in which a group of women held smoke bombs and a massive poster — though this time the demonstration appears to have been pre-planned. The group involved in the demonstration is Les Colleuses, a guerilla feminist movement in France.

Matt Donnelly Senior Film WriterA group of women protestors staged a dramatic scene at the Cannes Film Festival on Sunday, releasing plumes of smoke from handheld devices and displaying a long banner for the global press.At the premiere of “Holy Spider,” director Ali Abbasi’s female-centered thriller, roughly 12 women in formalwear gathered on the famed stairs of the festival’s Grand Palais with raised fists — filling the space with thick black smoke and holding a long scroll of women’s names.Security seemed unfazed by the event, allowing the protestors to be filmed and photographed. One insider close to the production said the protest was not a coordinated stunt to promote the film, about a journalist who travels to the Iranian holy city of Mashhad to investigate a serial killer murdering sex workers.

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.