Tsar Amir-Ebrahimi, from a soap opera star in Iran to exile for a sex video and, finally, an award at Cannes

When the Iranian Zar Amir-Ebrahimi (Tehran, 41 years old) collected the best actress award at the Cannes festival for her work in

the winner felt some poetic justice.

"You cannot work from revenge, but with the award in hand, unconsciously, I did feel a claim," she recounted this past Tuesday by video call from Los Angeles, where she is promoting the

for the Oscars.

He hasn't set foot in Iran for 15 years.

She has lived in Paris since 2008, when she fled her native country after a sex video leaked in which she appeared and for which she was sentenced to 99 lashes and 10 years in prison.

which opens today Friday in Spanish cinemas, is a film made from the diaspora by a director, Ali Abbasi, who emigrated to Denmark, and by a cast that includes Iranian actors in exile and others who traveled from his country to filming in Jordan, where the city of Mashhad was recreated.

However, above all else, it is the end of a long creative journey, that of Amir-Ebrahimi, who has earned a living in Europe in what he could and claims the talent of someone who in 2006 was one of the great Persian TV stars.

Until what she calls "my special story" happened.

More information

Iranian cinema champions women's protest against the regime

Holy Spider

moves to the rhythm of another brave woman, a journalist who enters the underworld of the Iranian holy city of Mashhad, to catch a serial killer who is killing sex workers, under the justification that this is how he cleans up "the streets of sinners.

Between 2000 and 2001, because the script is based on true events, the "spider killer" strangled 16 women, until he was caught.

Its director, Ali Abbasi, recognized EL PAÍS in Cannes: “It has taken me many years to get the project off the ground.

And when we were going to shoot in Turkey, the Iranian government interfered in our plans and we returned to our initial base, Jordan, from where we had fled due to covid.

However, my biggest initial mistake was that I did not have Amir-Ebrahimi, who was my

because I saw the character with a more forceful physique.

Luckily, the contract actress left the shoot a few days into the start and Amir-Ebrahimi replaced her, using all the pent-up rage from her past to build this journalist, elevating the film.”

My past history is so internalized that I don't even need to revive it for it to appear in my work

The initially chosen actress dropped out of the project because she refused to film a sequence that has become iconic today: when the journalist loses her hijab.

What was striking at the premiere in May in Cannes, today is a message of support for the women who have been leading the revolution in the Iranian streets since last September.

“This time I am optimistic about what is happening in Iran,” she explains.

"For several reasons.

First, because from the beginning men who fought for the rights that women demanded were also seen in the demonstrations.

This is very important.

Second, because 40 years have passed since the revolution that overthrew the Shah, and now there is a new generation on the streets.

The previous ones, like that of my parents, said that there were bigger problems than the imposition of wearing the hijab,

probably because they still carried the fear of four decades ago.

Third, this young generation, not being traumatized, is brave, is not going to allow itself to be manipulated by the Government, and has known how to connect with the rest of the world.

That they ask for?

Only freedom, freedom to live.

And that is contagious even for my parents.

It will take time, but now yes, this is the revolution that will triumph”.

The two investigators of 'Holy Spider'.

In the vindication that Amir-Ebrahimi felt with the award there are, he assures, several layers: “The first thing is that this is how all Iranians were rewarded, women who defy their government and fight against injustices like the one I suffered.

And that government, by the way, has erased me from the audiovisual of my country after my special story.

In 2006, when Amir-Ebrahimi, star of Iranian soap operas, had started her career in theater and cinema, a 20-minute video was leaked showing a couple having sex in a small room.

The man filmed quickly made his identity public: he was a production assistant who at the time of the recording, in 2004, was engaged to Amir-Ebrahimi, his partner in those images, and who assured that he had forgotten to delete it when he sold his laptop.

Of those 20 minutes, thousands of copies of the DVD were made and it was leaked on the Internet: an Iranian news website calculates that the business alone exceeded four million dollars in physical copies.

The film that Amir-Ebrahimi was going to release,

was banned (and has never been seen in your country).

The actress was also fired from her and replaced in all her ongoing projects, and she was prohibited from speaking in public.

From the beginning, men who fought for the rights demanded by women were also seen in the demonstrations.

This is very important"

The investigation did not focus on the leak, but on accusing Amir-Ebrahimi, who fled before the trial began.

In

, she was sentenced to 99 lashes and 10 years in prison and a lifetime ban from acting in Iranian film and television.

Her ex-boyfriend was arrested in Armenia and deported to Iran, where she was imprisoned.

There were politicians who even called for the execution of the actress (not her ex-partner) by public stoning, and a law was passed that sentenced anyone who produced sexual audiovisual material to death, even if it was a private recording.

Over time it emerged that the leaker had been, in revenge, another Iranian television star, Majid Bahrami, who died in 2014.

exile in france

And therefore, Amir-Ebrahimi has a French passport.

He has worked on stage in France and on film and television across Europe, as well as producing and presenting a cultural program for the BBC's Farsi service.

The worldwide relaunch of him has arrived with

"From the script we knew that we would make noise, and because of my special story I knew that it would provoke the fury of the Government," he recalls.

“It contains a message of hope and moves audiences around the world, who thank me for my work.

It's funny, because I was the casting director, something I know how to do well because I don't understand acting as a competition but as a collaboration.

Abbasi and I defend the same ideas and that is why we connected well, after having done the tests, along with 50 other actresses, to the main character.

And as the person in charge of the

I got to see more than 500 different interpreters for the rest of the roles”.

Tsar Amir-Ebrahimi, with the best actress award in Cannes thanks to 'Holy Spider,' on May 28. CLEMENS BILAN (EFE)

Has he used, as Abbasi says, his past to build the character?

“Well, not consciously.

I love my country, I understand that talking about Iranian women is not only focusing on them, but also talking about life and freedom.

illustrates misogyny, how the regime controls women's bodies.

I suffered it, my compatriots too.

My past history is so internalized that I don't even need to revive it for it to appear in my work.

My experience also made me understand what it is to be a good journalist, if you deserve to risk your life for certain things.

As a journalist you have a voice of your own that you can use.

In the end it is a universal story.”

Like the global imbalance that still exists between men and women.

When she is told that in Spain, two days before the interview, four women had been murdered in 24 hours in crimes of sexist violence, she smiles anguished: “I insist, it is a universal story.

Think about the movies you see with serial killers chasing women.

Unfortunately, the number of murdered women is still gigantic today.

It even happens in France, and I've seen it in other countries.

These films are the mirror that reflects society, the most brutal face, the greatest of the weaknesses of the existing imbalance between men and women”.

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