Cannes 2025: Jafar Panahi returns after twenty years, receives 10-minute standing ovation for ‘It Was Just an Accident’-OxBig News Network

Delnaz Najafi, Hadis Pakbaten, Majid Panahi, Solmaz Panahi, Jafar Panahi, Tahereh Saeedi, Maryam Afsharimovahed, Ebrahim Azizi and Vahid Mobasseri depart the ‘It Was Just an Accident’ purple carpet on the 78th annual Cannes Film Festival at Palais des Festivals
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Jafar Panahi’s It Was Just an Accident premiered to a 10-minute standing ovation on the Cannes Film Festival on Friday, marking a strong return for the acclaimed Iranian filmmaker. The screening, a part of the primary Competition lineup, was Panahi’s first in-person look at Cannes since 2003.

The movie, described briefly as a narrative the place “a minor accident sets in motion a series of escalating consequences,” facilities on working-class characters looking for retribution in opposition to a jail guard who as soon as abused them. Though fictional, the movie attracts from the social and political realities Panahi has lengthy explored, typically at nice private value.

Panahi, identified for The White Balloon, The Circle, and Taxi, has confronted years of authorized restrictions beneath Iran’s authoritarian authorities. Since his preliminary arrest in 2009, he has been subjected to a number of detentions, a 20-year filmmaking ban, and restrictions on journey and speech. Despite this, Panahi has continued to supply internationally acknowledged movies, many made in secret.

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It Was Just an Accident was filmed beneath related strain. In the movie’s manufacturing notes, Panahi revealed that plainclothes officers tried to grab the footage mid-shoot. “They continued to put pressure on us by threatening to arrest the crew and shut down production,” he wrote. The crew paused briefly, then resumed filming.

Though formally free to work once more, Panahi said, “In practice, I remain on the margins. … I have no choice but to keep working outside the system.”

The director’s return to Cannes is each a private and political milestone. While a lot of his friends have left Iran, Panahi stays. “I can’t live anywhere else,” he mentioned. “This film had to be made. I made it, and I’ll accept whatever consequences may follow.”