Lauded Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi’s newest characteristic, It Was Just an Accident, simply had its world premiere in Competition right here on the Cannes Film Festival. The afternoon screening was met with a 10-minute ovation — and was extremely important as a result of Panahi himself was in attendance. This is the primary time he has been in a position to seem on the competition in over 20 years.
It Was Just an Accident has a one-line synopsis that reads: “What begins as a minor accident sets in motion a series of escalating consequences.”
Panahi, whose credit additionally embrace The White Balloon, The Circle and Taxi, has spent most of his filmmaking profession within the crosshairs of Iran’s authoritarian Islamic Republic authorities, together with greater than a decade going through a number of detentions, jail sentences, home arrests and filmmaking and journey bans.
He was launched from his newest jail stint in February 2023, and within the manufacturing notes for It Was Just an Accident, he says: “The sentence that banned me from making films, writing, giving interviews and traveling has been officially annulled. But in practice, I remain on the margins. … I have no choice but to keep working outside the system.”
The filmmaker employed clandestine strategies to shoot It Was Just an Accident and mentioned that earlier than wrapping, “plainclothes officers turned up and demanded all the footage. I refused. They continued to put pressure on us by threatening to arrest the crew and shut down production. In the end, they gave up. We paused the shoot for a while, then resumed. Nothing further happened.”
Panahi’s first characteristic, The White Balloon (1995), was chosen for Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes, the place it received the Caméra d’Or. He returned to th Croisette with 2003’s Crimson Gold, which performed in Un Certain Regard and received the Jury Prize. Initially chosen to symbolize Iran on the Oscars, Crimson Gold finally was banned by the authorities, stopping it from being proven in Iranian cinemas.
In 2009, Panahi was arrested for the primary time and the next 12 months was sentenced to a 20-year ban from directing movies, writing screenplays, giving interviews to the press or leaving Iran, underneath risk of a six-year jail sentence.
Panahi nonetheless continued to make motion pictures in secret. His This Is Not a Film was shot solely in his residence and screened Out of Competition in Cannes in 2011. His 2013 movie Closed Curtain received the Silver Bear for Best Screenplay in Berlin, then in 2015, Taxi took the Golden Bear. Three Faces (2017) competed in Cannes and received the Best Screenplay prize.
On July 11, 2022, Panahi was arrested and wouldn’t be launched till February 2023, after a starvation strike. Later that 12 months, he was thought to have left Iran for the primary time in 14 years.
Also within the movie’s manufacturing notes, Panahi states that he opts to proceed residing in Iran. “I can’t live anywhere else. Many of my fellow Iranians have chosen – or have been forced – to emigrate. But I can’t do that. I don’t have the courage! I’m unfit to live outside Iran. We’ll see what happens. In any case, this film had to be made. I made it, and I’ll accept whatever consequences may follow.”