Latest news with #Dissidents
Sky News
25-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Sky News
Cannes: Dissident Iranian director wins Palme d'Or at film festival
Dissident Iranian director Jafar Pahani - who has been arrested several times in Iran for his filmmaking - has won the prestigious Palme d'Or accolade at the 78th Cannes Film Festival. The 64-year-old, who was banned from filmmaking in Iran, premiered his political thriller It Was Just an Accident on 20 May. The film was one of 22 competing for the top prize - and was up against well-known directors including Wes Anderson, Richard Linklater, and Ari Aster. Inspired by his own experiences in prison, the film tells the story of a released dissident who kidnaps a man who resembles someone who tortured him in prison. Soon, the protagonist questions whether more violence is the right approach to ensure justice. The filmmaker, whose appearance at the festival was his first in 15 years due to a travel ban, used his acceptance speech to speak out against the regime. He said: "Hoping that we will reach a day when no one will tell us what to wear or not wear, what to do or not do", in seeming reference to Iran's strict modesty rules for women. The 2022 death of Mahsa Amini, a young woman who was in the custody of Iran's morality police for allegedly violating modesty laws, led to the country's largest civil unrest since the 1979 revolution. The film, like the rest of his published works since 2010, was shot in secret. The director told Reuters he vows to return to his home country after the festival - despite the risk of being prosecuted. He said: "Win or not, I was going to go back either way. Don't be afraid of challenges." Pahani has now won the top prizes at all three major European festivals - after winning the Golden Lion at Venice for The Circle in 2000, and Berlin's Golden Bear for Taxi in 2015.
The Guardian
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Iranian director Jafar Panahi wins Palme d'Or at Cannes for It Was Just an Accident
The dissident Iranian film-maker Jafar Panahi has won the top prize at the Cannes film festival for his drama It Was Just an Accident, inspired by his stints of imprisonment at the hands of the Iranian government. The film was the first in many years made by the director after a ban on film-making was lifted – although he has continued to direct despite being expressly forbidden to do so. In 2011, a year after his first arrest, a copy of his drama This Is Not a Film was snuck into Cannes on a USB stick hidden in a cake. It Was Just an Accident is his most personal drama to date, following five characters who believe they have identified the person who anonymously tortured them in prison. 'The first time I was in prison I was in solitary confinement,' Panahi said last week. 'I was on my own in a tiny cell and they would take me out blindfolded to a place where I would sit in front of a wall and hear this voice at my back. It was the voice of the man who would question me – sometimes for two hours, sometimes for eight hours. 'And I would just hang on his voice all that time, fantasising about who this person was from his voice. And I had an intuition that someday this voice would be an aspect of something I'd write or shoot and give a creative life to.' The victory means a remarkable sixth consecutive win for US studio Neon, following its triumphs for Anora, Anatomy of a Fall, Triangle of Sadness, Titane and Parasite – the first and last of which went on to sweep the board at the Oscars. Second prize – the Grand Prix – went to Joachim Trier's domestic drama Sentimental Value, which stars Stellan Skarsgård as a tricky film-maker who attempts to reconcile with his daughter after years of estrangement by casting her in a new, highly personal film. The film is a reunion for Trier and Renate Reinsve, who starred in his 2021 hit, The Worst Person in the World. Meanwhile the jury – or third – prize was a tie between the Spanish director Olivier Laxe'sSirat and the German director Mascha Schilinski's Sound of Falling. The director Hasan Hadi won the first film prize – the Camera d'Or – for The President's Cake, the first award ever given to an Iraqi film in Cannes. Best actor honours went to Wagner Moura for The Secret Agent, which also won the best director prize for Kleber Mendonça Filho, while The Little Sister's star, Nadia Melliti, took best actress. The special prize was presented at the start of the ceremony by the jury president, Juliette Binoche, to the Chinese director Bi Gan for his trippy meditation on the death of the universe, Resurrection. The Dardennes brothers won best screenplay for The Young Mother's Home. Binoche's majority female jury also included the Italian actor Alba Rohrwacher, the Indian director Payal Kapadia, the French-Moroccan writer Leïla Slimani, the American actors Halle Berry and Jeremy Strong, the South Korean film-maker Hong Sangsoo, the Mexican director Carlos Reygadas and the Congolese film-maker Dieudo Hamadi. The festival was marked by real-world drama, from the sentencing of one of its former lions, Gerard Derardieu, on sexual assault charges on the first day of the festival, to almost-daily diatribes against Donald Trump's movie tariffs plan by film-makers including Wes Anderson, Robert De Niro and Richard Linklater. The festival also saw a controversial gala honouring Kevin Spacey, a delegate injured by a falling palm tree, and the banning from the red carpet of an actor accused of rape. On the final day, a power cut believed by many to be sabotage hit the festival headquarters for five hours; the closing ceremony proceeded regardless thanks to backup generators. Palme d'Or Jafar Panahi, It Was Just an Accident Grand Prix Joaquin Trier, Sentimental Value Director Kleber Mendonça Filho, The Secret Agent Actor Wagner Moura, The Secret Agent Actress Nadia Melliti, Little Sister Jury Prize Sirat, Olivier Laxe and Sound of Falling, Mascha Schilinski Special Award (Prix Spécial) Resurrection, Bi Gan Screenplay Four Camera d'Or The President's Cake, Hasan Hadi Camera d'Or Special Mention My Father's Shadow, Akinola Davies Jr. Short Film Palme d'Or I'm Glad You're Dead Now, Tawfeek Barhom Short Film Special Mention Ali, Adnan Al Rajeev Golden Eye Documentary Prize Imago, Déni Oumar Pitsaev Golden Eye Special Jury Prize The Six Billion Dollar Man, Eugene Jarecki Queer Palm Little Sister, Hafsia Heerzi Palme Dog Panda, The Love That Remains Fipresci Award (Competition) The Secret Agent, Kleber Mendonça Filho Fipresci Award (Un Certain Regard) Urchin, Harris Dickinson Fipresci Award (Parallel Sections) Dandelion's Odyssey, Momoko Seto Un Certain Regard Award The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo, Diego Céspedes Jury Prize A Poet, Simón Mesa Soto Best Director Tarzan and Arab Nasser, Once Upon a Time in Gaza Performance Cléo Diara, I Only Rest in the Storm; Frank Dillane, Urchin Best Screenplay Harry Lighton, Pillion Special Mention Norah, Tawfik Alzaidi Europa Cinemas Label Wild Foxes, Valéry Carnoy Society of Dramatic Authors and Composers Prize Wild Foxes, Valéry Carnoy Audience Choice Award The President's Cake, Hasan Hadi Grand Prize A Useful Ghost, Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke French Touch Prize Imago, Déni Oumar Pitsaev GAN Foundation Award for Distribution Le Pacte, Left-Handed Girl Louis Roederer Foundation Rising Star Award Théodore Pellerin, Nino Leitz Cine Discovery Prize (short film) L'mina, Randa Maroufi Society of Dramatic Authors and Composers Prize Guillermo Galoe and Victor Alonso-Berbel, Sleepless City Canal+ Short Film Award Erogenesis, Xandra Popescu
Washington Post
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
Dissident Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi's presence in Cannes speaks volumes
CANNES, France — Before this week, the dissident Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi hadn't attended the premiere of one of his films in more than 15 years. Panahi, one of the leading international directors, was banned from traveling out of Iran in 2009 for attending the funeral of a student killed in the Green Movement protests, a judgment later extended to two decades. But even when placed under house arrest, Panahi kept making movies, many of which are among the most lauded of the century. He made 2011's 'This Is Not a Film' on an iPhone in his living room. 'Taxi' (2015) was clandestinely shot almost entirely within a car.
