After winning the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in May, It Was Just an Accident, directed by the Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi, was released in cinemas worldwide on Wednesday. Produced in secret and co-financed by France, the film was inspired by his time in prison. It has been selected as France’s official submission for Best International Feature at the 2026 Oscars.
Watching his latest film, It Was Just an Accident, screened for the first time at Cannes before an international audience, Jafar Panahi was overcome with tears of joy.
For 15 years, he had been unable to experience a film of his with the public, owing to a travel ban imposed by the Iranian authorities.
"I could really see how the public and the crew were reacting, when they laughed and when they felt emotion and that’s fundamental for a filmmaker," he told RFI after the première at the Cannes Film Festival in May.
The sensation was amplified when he was announced winner of the Palme d'Or on 24 May - the highest honour of the event.
In a moving speech, he defended freedom of expression, declaring: “No one should dare tell us what kind of clothes we should wear, what we should do or what we should not do. The cinema is a society".
Once the applause in Cannes subsided, however, it was time to return and face the reality of the situation.
Although available to audiences worldwide, Panahi's film will not be seen by Iranians at home – one of the filmmaker's biggest regrets.
A portrait of contemporary Iranian society, It Was Just an Accident recounts how five Iranians prepare to confront a man who could be their former jailor.
One dark night, there's a minor car accident. From that point, the characters are thrown together, forced to relive their trauma, and take action. Despite the dark tone of the film, there are moments of humour and tenderness.
Panahi wrote the parts based on his own experience and the information gleaned from other prisoner's testimonies – some of whom had spent decades in jail.
The director has been jailed twice, most recently for seven months in 2022 -2023. He was released after a hunger strike.
Despite the danger in pursuing his work, he said it was important to bring these stories out into the open.
The common point among the characters was the pyschological torture they experienced. They were all blindfolded and interrogated by someone, standing behind them – which made them wonder – who is this man ? How old is he ?
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The question Panahi asks the audience a moral one: what would you do if you recognised your jailor in the street?
"It’s not just about vengeance or forgiveness," Panahi told France 24.
He points to when the notorious Evin prison was bombed by Israel (in June 2025) and the interrogation wing was destroyed.
Some of the prisoners escaped, but theyalso helped prison guards who were buried under the rubble.
"They could have had vengeance, but it depends on the situation," he says. "In that moment, being human overcame the need for vengeance. You can’t predict how you would act in certain circumstances."
'Guerilla cinema'
One thing is certain, Panahi who has made dozens of films, most of them illegally, has perfected the art of "guerilla cinema".
You have to make films "very fast, with a low budget and a small crew", he says.
It Was Just an Accident was shot in 25 days, with an interruption of around a month near the end because the authorities caught up with them.
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Despite an extensive search, they didn't find the footage because the crew had carefully hidden it. Panahi managed to wrap up the last two days of shooting in one day.
He has been banned for the last 20 years from making films by the Iranian authorities, but this has not dampened his spirit, nor his desire to keep trying to find a way to tell his stories.
"Living in Iran is like being in prison, when you’re told what to think and believe, what you’re supposed to wear and eat – all of that within the framework of an ideology. You leave the small prison, only to find you’re inside a larger one," he said.
Turning a page
Despite criticism from the regime - who said the film only won a prize because "foreign secret service agents wanted to promote it" - Panahi says he could never see himself living in exile as he loves his homeland too much.
He feels heartened by the changes he's witnessed Iranian society in the past few years, thanks to the Women,Life, Freedom protests and he feels a "page has turned".
"A regime like this can’t last forever, even if we don’t know exactly when it will fall. We can see that the roots are not strong, it’s an empty shell.
"The regime may still have power, but all the foundations linked to Iranian society have eroded, it’s rotten from the inside and they’re only digging their own graves."
