Iranian filmmaker Panahi urges 'freedom' as he wins top prize at Cannes
Iranian dissident director Jafar Panahi won the Palme d'Or top prize at the Cannes film festival on Saturday, using his acceptance speech to urge his country to unite for "freedom."
The latest film from the 64-year-old, "Un Simple Accident" ("It Was Just an Accident"), tells the tale of five ordinary Iranians confronted with a man they believed tortured them in jail.
The core of the political and wry drama examines the moral dilemma faced by people if they are given an opportunity to take revenge on their oppressors.
Panahi used his own experiences in jail to write the screenplay.
"Let's set aside all problems, all differences. What matters most right now is our country and the freedom of our country," he told the VIP-studded audience on the French Riviera.
The leading light in the Iranian New Wave cinema movement has vowed to return to Tehran after the Cannes Festival despite the risks of prosecution.
Banned from making films in 2010 and imprisoned twice, Panahi argued that cinema should be a space for free expression.
"No one has the right to tell you what you (filmmakers) should do and what you should not do," he told the audience, according to remarks in Persian that were translated into French by an interpreter.
Iran was shaken by the "Women, Life, Freedom" protests in 2022 sparked by the death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini after she was arrested for allegedly flouting dress rules for women.
The demonstrations were quashed in a crackdown that saw thousands detained, according to the United Nations, and hundreds shot dead by security forces, according to activists.
Director Kleber Mendonca Filho poses with his Best Director award and with the Best Actor award he received on behalf of Wagner Moura for the film "O Agente Secreto" ("The Secret Agent"). |
REUTERS
Among the other Cannes awards, Brazil's Wagner Moura, best known for playing Pablo Escobar in "Narcos" — picked up the best actor award for his performance in police thriller "The Secret Agent." Its director, Kleber Mendonca Filho, also won the best director prize, making it a good evening for Brazil.
France's Nadia Melliti continued her fairytale fortnight in Cannes by clinching the gong for best actress.
Melliti, who was spotted in the street by a casting agent and had never appeared in a film, plays a 17-year-old Muslim girl struggling with her homosexuality in Hafsia Herzi's "The Little Sister."
"Sentimental Value" by Norway's Joachim Trier, a moving family drama given a 19-minute standing ovation on Thursday, picked up the second prize Grand Prix.
Nadia Melliti poses with her Best Actress prize at the Cannes film festival. |
AFP-JIJI
Saturday's closing ceremony was the final act of a drama-filled day in Cannes that saw the glitzy seaside resort suffer a more than five-hour power cut.
The outage knocked out traffic lights and had visitors and locals scrambling for paper money because cash machines were out-of-order and restaurants were left unable to process card payments.
Local officials said a suspected arson attack on a substation and vandalism of an electricity pylon had caused the disruption.
German director Mascha Schilinski joked that she had "had difficulty writing her speech" because of the black-out as she accepted a jury prize for her "Sound of Falling."
Director Joachim Trier, Grand Prix award winner for the film "Affeksjonsverdi" ("Sentimental Value"), poses with his prize at the Cannes film festival. |
REUTERS
Panahi has won a host of prizes at European film festivals and showcased his debut film "The White Balloon" in Cannes in 1995 which won an award for best first feature.
The head of the Cannes 2025 jury, French actress Juliette Binoche, paid tribute to "It Was Just an Accident."
"This is a film that emerges from a place of resistance, a place of survival, and it felt essential to bring it put it on top today," she told reporters afterwards. "Art will always prevail, humanity will always prevail."
Panahi has always refused to stop making films and his efforts to smuggle them out to foreign distributors and film festivals has become the stuff of legend.
A year after being handed a 20-year ban on filmmaking in 2010 he dispatched a documentary with the cheeky title "This is Not a Film" to the Cannes Festival on a flash drive stashed in a cake.
"I'm alive as long as I'm making films. If I'm not making films, then what happens to me no longer matters," he said earlier this week.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Tokyo Weekender
a day ago
- Tokyo Weekender
Japanese Horror Game Exit 8's Movie Adaptation Becomes Cannes Film Festival Hit
What started as a viral indie game with 1.4 million downloads worldwide has transformed into one of the most talked-about films at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival. Exit 8 , a Japanese horror film adaptation, was officially selected for the prestigious Midnight Screening section and received an eight-minute standing ovation from a sold-out crowd of 2,300 viewers. From Indie Game to Cannes-worthy Cinema The original 'The Exit 8' game, created by Kotake Create, presents players with a deceptively simple premise: navigate an endless underground passage in Japan while following cryptic guidance to detect 'abnormalities.' If you spot something wrong, turn back. If everything seems normal, keep moving toward the elusive 8th exit. The game's genius lies in its psychological tension — each loop through the mundane subway corridor becomes increasingly unsettling as players question their own perception, all while stuck in an infinite loop riddled with danger at every corner. But rather than relying on jumpscares, the game instills fear by slowly suffocating the player in a looping, liminal space, lined with endless subway advertisements and haunted by the fleeting presence of a strange passerby who lingers disturbingly in the uncanny valley. Starring Kazunari Ninomiya from the soon-to-disband group Arashi and co-star Nana Komatsu, the Japanese game was transformed into a film under Genki Kawamura, renowned for writing the novels and directing the film adaptation s for If Cats Disappeared From The World and Okuotoko . The award-winning poster for the Exit 8 film depicts star Kazunari Ninomiya overlayed by the number '8' The Midnight Screening Cannes section, traditionally reserved for genre-bending and experimental films, provided the perfect platform for this unique adaptation, while the movie's poster even won the 'Prix Luciole' award for best poster design among Cannes submissions. An alternate poster for the film adaptation of Exit 8, starring Kochi Yamato as the eerie passerby Coming to Screens This Summer Exit 8 will be released in Japanese theaters on August 29, 2025, following its successful Cannes premiere. If you can't wait for the film release, you can experience the original game on Steam , the Android and Apple app stores, or through various gaming platforms like Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and 5, and Xbox Series X/S. Check out the Exit 8 Official Japanese website and follow the film's official Instagram account at @exit8_movie for more updates. Related Posts 6 Japanese and Japan-inspired Indie Horror Games to Spook Out To Japan's Golden Legacy at the Cannes Film Festival Chie Hayakawa's Renoir Competes for Palme d'Or at Cannes Film Festival 2025
NHK
a day ago
- NHK
From Gaza to Cannes: A journalist's story
A Gaza-based photojournalist who documented life under conflict was killed the day after the film she helped create was selected for the Cannes Film Festival. We look at what the journalist aimed to express.
Japan Times
6 days ago
- Japan Times
'Kokuho' illuminates the high price of becoming a national treasure
Japan's ningen kokuhō (living national treasures) are a select group of artisans and performers who are recognized for mastery of their craft. Shuichi Yoshida's 2018 novel "Kokuho" traces the life of one such individual, an orphan from a yakuza clan adopted into a family of kabuki stars, whose tumultuous journey through the world of classical Japanese theater leads to the top — but at a price. "Kokuho" has now been adapted into a film by Korean Japanese director Lee Sang-il which, following its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival this May, hits Japanese cinemas Friday. The sumptuously shot film spans three hours and half a century of story, and stars Ryo Yoshizawa ("Kingdom") as orphan-turned-kabuki legend Kikuo alongside industry veterans like Ken Watanabe ("The Last Samurai"), who plays Kikuo's adopted father and a kabuki master in his own right. Lee tells The Japan Times that while the provenance of the film is ostensibly Yoshida's 2018 novel, his desire to make a film about kabuki goes back much further, to shortly after he adapted Yoshida's novel "Villain" for the screen in 2010. "I told Yoshida I wanted to do a movie about kabuki and ... what kind of characters I wanted to feature," says Lee, 51. "We both had our own projects for years after that, but at one point, Yoshida told me that he had started to do some research into kabuki. I thought, 'Oh! That idea I mentioned sparked something within him.'" Lee, who debuted as a feature film director with 2002's "Border Line," explains his interest in kabuki came from a desire to explore forms of storytelling outside cinema. "Up until 'Villain,' I was primarily interested in movies, but I started to get interested in forms of traditional Japanese expression. Among those, kabuki is both popular but incredibly deep with elements you can't see on the surface," Lee says. "Even the same play can be very different depending on when it's performed and who stars in it." Yoshida's take on Lee's original concept took its own twists and turns, but the resulting novel retained two key elements: Its lead, Kikuo, is an onnagata, a male actor who plays female roles, and the film traces the course of his life, from his childhood as the son of a slain yakuza boss in 1960s Nagasaki to his official designation as a ningen kokuhō. To mark the passing of time visually, Lee gave each of the film's three main sections (youth, adolescence and middle age) a distinctive look by applying different color grades — the digital equivalent of changing film stocks. "We also thought about our characters' relationships, and how their positions flip from period to period,' says Lee. 'Are they at the height of their career or at a low point, and how does that change how they interact? By showing that, we could clearly show how time had passed.' One partner in bringing the film's look to life was Tunisian cinematographer Sofian El Fani, whom Lee first worked with on the television drama "Pachinko." "Sofian really watches the actors to see what they're trying to express," says Lee. "'Pachinko' was filmed in English, Japanese and Korean, the latter two of which he didn't understand, but he picked up perfectly on what the actors were feeling." Ryo Yoshizawa (left) and Ryusei Yokohama star in 'Kokuho' as siblings-by-adoption turned rivals. | © Yoshida Shuichi / Asahi Shimbun © "Kokuho" Film Partners Key to bringing "Kokuho" to the screen was finding the right actor to play Kikuo. Lee needed an actor who could both embody the complicated, sometimes ruthless character and dedicate over a year to training for the performance. "Yoshizawa saying yes to the film was the determining factor in whether I would make it," says Lee. "In fact, I offered the part to him five or six years ago, before there was any guarantee we could get the funding to make the film. "I saw in him the same idiosyncrasies that Kikuo had in the book," says Lee. "On the outside, they're like dolls, but their insides are like black holes. I couldn't think of any other actors who had that aura." To play Kikuo's adopted father, Lee turned to Watanabe, the Academy Award-nominated actor whom he has directed twice before: in "Unforgiven" (2013), a spin on the Clint Eastwood western, and in another Yoshida adaptation, "Rage" (2016). "Ken has appeared in many films and TV, often as a kind of a tough guy with a lot of pride and strength," says Lee. "But I usually go against that public image and ask him to display weakness, characters with some kind of internal struggle. "In real life, he's overcome terrible illness," continues Lee, referring to Watanabe's bouts with acute myeloid leukemia and stomach cancer. "He's seen the worst and come out of it. So I think that 'shadow' is within him, and I think it's interesting to ask him to do roles that come into dialogue with that." Ryo Yoshizawa trained for over a year to play the Kikuo, a kabuki actor on the path to becoming a nationally recognized master of his craft. | © Yoshida Shuichi / Asahi Shimbun © "Kokuho" Film Partners In "Kokuho," Watanabe plays a famous kabuki actor raising his biological son Shunsuke (Ryusei Yokohama) as his successor. But after bringing Kikuo into his family, Watanabe's character must choose between his bloodline and talent when he realizes his adopted son may have more potential than his biological one. For Yoshizawa and Yokohama's many kabuki performances — first as partners and later as rivals — Lee depicts the view from the audience, who are swept up by the exquisite dancing, makeup and costumes, but also takes us right up alongside the actors, who fight to maintain the illusion through intense physical and emotional pain. "When an audience watches a kabuki play, they focus on who's in the spotlight. But I have a feeling that's not all that's touching them," Lee says. "There's so much effort that goes into the final performance, and the audience feels that, maybe unconsciously. When an actor finishes their performance and leaves the stage, some kind of atmosphere, some kind of afterimage, lingers. I wanted to capture that experience on film." Director Lee Sang-il says his interest in kabuki came from a desire to explore storytelling in different forms of traditional Japanese expression. | Matt Schley The director also worked hard to make sure the kabuki scenes were integral to the overall story rather than serve as their own distinct sections. "The story and character relationships needed to carry on into the kabuki scenes, to synchronize," says Lee. "The kabuki has its own story, but at the same time, it's reflecting the relationships between Kikuo, Shunsuke and the other characters." Another theme is the loneliness endured by a performer striving for kokuhō-level greatness like Kikuo. "What is a living national treasure, anyway? In the film, we depict it as someone who's able to see something that others can't, a kind of 'landscape' that no one has ever seen," Lee says. "That's quite a lonely situation to be in. And when you reach for something of that level, you can't hold on to anything, or anyone, else. It all slips through your fingers." In that sense, Lee says there may be a connection between the worlds of kabuki and filmmaking. "The art forms are different, but the pursuit is similar. There are people in both who want to keep going further and higher." "Kokuho" is screening in cinemas nationwide. For more information, visit, (Japanese only).
