Interview: Zar Amir Ebrahimi – Holy Spider / Shayda / Tatami

Ali Abbasi brought her on as a casting director and as fate would have it Zar Amir Ebrahimi would go onto land the role that was originally not meant for her (as a journalist trying to solve serial murders of prostitutes in Mashhad, Iran) and win the Best Actress award (see here) at the Cannes Film Festival in 2022. Holy Spider would catapult the actress to international recognition but as we learned, Ebrahimi was already making inroads onto significant contributions that premiered in 2023 with Shayda (a Sundance selection and Audience Award winner) and Venice preemed Tatami (a film that allowed her to cut her teeth as a director alongside Guy Nattiv). In a brief sit down with Zar Amir Ebrahimi (who was a jury member at the 2023 Marrakech International Film Festival) I got to ask her how she looks back at the significance of Holy Spider and how did it might have changed her role choices and career path and talked about her taking on the titular role of Shadya in Noora Niasari’s debut.