Iranian woman wins Best Actress award at Cannes

The Cannes Film Festival announced on Saturday that Iranian Zara Amir Ebrahimi won the Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival, for her role as a journalist who tracks down a serial killer in the movie (Holy Spider).

Ebrahimi seemed visibly moved while receiving the award, and she said during a press conference she held immediately after the festival when asked about what appeared to be feelings of support for her on social media, which she said she had not seen, “Maybe my presence here tonight is just a message, especially for Iranian women,” according to Reuters quoted.

Speaking in Farsi while receiving her award, Brahimi said, “Tonight I have the feeling that I went through a long journey before arriving here on this podium, a journey marked by humiliation.”

She added, “This film is about women and their bodies. It is a film full of faces, hair, hands, breasts and sex, all that is impossible to show in Iran.”

The “Holy Spider” talks about a real crime of a killer targeting prostitutes in the Iranian city of Mashhad.

The film was not allowed to be filmed in Iran, and was filmed instead in Jordan, according to the Associated Press.
Ebrahimi became a star in Iran in her early twenties due to her secondary role in the series “Narges”, but she was forced to leave her country and sought refuge in France in 2008 after a sex scandal.