The Golden Palm - Jafar Panahi wins in Cannes

Photo Laurent Hou

In an interview with Jean-Michel, Jafar Panahi explained how the film's constellation of characters was created.

"These are fictional characters, but what their stories are based on the experiences of prisoners. The diversity of their profiles and reactions is also real. Some become very violent and obsessed with revenge, while others, despite everything, try to distance themselves and consider long-term options. Some were highly politicized or became so, others not at all; they were arrested more or less at random. This is the case with the main character, Vahid, a worker who simply demanded his wages. The regime makes no distinctions. The other characters in the film each represent one of the many groups that form the opposition, more or less organized. These groups are often in open conflict with one another, even within the prisons. They all agree that they are against the regime, but as for everything else… Since the death of Mahsa Amini and the "Woman, Life, Freedom" movement, rejection of the regime has become widespread. Often without knowing what will replace it. And this is evident to the naked eye, simply because so many women now appear in public without headscarves. This mass disobedience was completely unthinkable a few years ago, but the film's scenes, shot in the middle of the street with actresses without headscarves, reflect the current situation. Iranian women have brought this change."

"It Was Just an Accident" is a film that is as simple as it is complex, in which tragicomedy and indirect horror engage in a strange, sometimes quite talkative, dance. Above all, however, the film is a manifesto to a profoundly human attitude towards the injustice and violence of the Iranian dictatorship, and above all an example of effective resilience.

He was imprisoned twice in his native Iran. In 2010, Jafar Panahi was arrested and banned from traveling and working, a ban he successfully and cleverly circumvented. He did so in 2011 with his film "This Is Not a Film", and with his biggest box-office success to date, "Taxi Tehran" in 2015. Paradoxically, his success at film festivals and his global media presence not only helped him but also exacerbated his difficulties. In July 2022, he was arrested again and only released in February 2023 after worldwide protests and a hunger strike.

When Panahi was released from prison in February 2023, he was deeply affected by the suffering of those he had met there, their pain, their traumas, and the fact that many of them remained incarcerated.

A minor accident—a father with his pregnant wife and daughter in the car runs over one of the many stray dogs on an unlit night road—triggers a chain reaction. In the garage where the car damage is to be temporarily repaired, the worker Vahid (Vahid Mobasseri) recognizes with horror the characteristic sound of the man's prosthetic leg and is immediately convinced he has found his former prison torturer. He kidnaps him and takes him to the desert, intending to bury him alive.

But the kidnapped man (Ebrahim Azizi) vehemently denies being Eghbal, forcing Vahid to find his former fellow prisoners in order to help with his identification.

"It Was Just an Accident" is a sometimes irresistibly funny, but often also absurdly grotesc mix of reality and moral-ethical consideration.

The victims of the regime, their anger, their traumas, and their desires for revenge and justice, all this led to the creation of the screenplay of "It was just an accident". And now, with a film about the long shadow of his imprisonment, he has won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival – an honor that, in this case, is both an expression of solidarity and a prize for a film that is as simple as it is complexly effective.which was awarded in Cannes with the Golden Palm. 

Alice Kanterian