Latest news with #ThisIsNotaFilm
Express Tribune
25-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Express Tribune
From prison cell to Cannes
Jafar Panahi never set out to be a political filmmaker. "In my definition, a political filmmaker defends an ideology where the good follow it and the bad oppose it," the Iranian director says. "In my films, even those who behave badly are shaped by the system, not personal choice," he tells DW. But for more than a decade, Panahi has had little choice. Following his support for the opposition Green Movement protests, the director of The White Balloon and The Circle, was handed a 20-year ban on filmmaking and international travel in 2010. That didn't stop him. Over the years, he found new ways to shoot, edit, and smuggle out his films — from turning his living room into a film set (This Is Not a Film) to using a car as a mobile studio (in Taxi, which won the Golden Bear at the 2015 Berlinale). Last week, Panahi stepped back into the spotlight — not through smuggled footage or video calls, but in person. For the first time in over two decades, the now 64-year-old filmmaker returned to the Cannes Film Festival to present his latest feature, It Was Just an Accident, premiering in competition to an emotional 8-minute standing ovation. Prison to the Palais The road to Cannes has been anything but smooth. Panahi was arrested again in July 2022 and detained in Tehran's notorious Evin prison. After almost seven months and a hunger strike, he was released in February 2023. In a stunning legal victory, Iran's Supreme Court overturned his original 2010 sentence. Panahi was legally free, but artistically still bound by a system he refuses to submit to. "To make a film in the official way in Iran, you have to submit your script to the Islamic Guidance Ministry for approval," he tells DW. "This is something I cannot do. I made another clandestine film. Again." That film, It Was Just An Accident, may be Panahi's most direct confrontation yet with state violence and repression. Shot in secret and featuring unveiled female characters in defiance of Iran's hijab law, the film tells the story of a group of ex-prisoners who believe they've found the man who tortured them — and must decide whether to exact revenge. The taut, 24-hour drama unfolds like a psychological thriller. Stylistically, It Was Just An Accident is a sharp break from the more contained, and largely self-reflexive works Panahi made while under his official state ban, but the plot remains strongly autobiographical. Thriller that cuts deep The film opens with a banal tragedy — a man accidentally kills a dog with his car - and spirals into a slow-burning reckoning with state-sanctioned cruelty. Vahid (Valid Mobasseri), a mechanic who is asked to repair the damaged car, thinks he recognises the owner as Eghbal, aka Peg-Leg, his former torturer. He kidnaps him, planning to bury him alive in the desert. But he can't be sure he's got the right man, because he was blindfolded during his internment. "They kept us blindfolded, during interrogation or when we left our cells," Panahi recalls of his time in prison. "Only in the toilet could you remove the blindfold." Seeking reassurance, the mechanic reaches out to fellow prisoners for confirmation. Soon Vahid's van is packed with victims seeking revenge on the man who abused them for nothing more than voicing opposition to the authorities. There's a bride (Hadis Pakbaten) who abandons her wedding, together with her wedding photographer and former inmate Shiva (Maryam Afshari), to go after the man who raped and tortured her. There's Hamid (Mohamad Ali Elyasmehr), a man so traumatised and so furious by his experience he doesn't care if the man they've caught is the right guy; he just wants vengeance. "Even dead, they're a scourge on humanity," he says of all the intelligence officers serving under the regime. As the group debates vengeance vs non-violence, alongside brutal descriptions of the beatings and torture they endured, Panahi inserts sly moments of humour and touches of the absurd. The hostage-takers cross paths with Eghbal's family, including his heavily pregnant wife, and suddenly find themselves rushing her to the hospital to give birth. Afterwards, as is tradition in Iran, Vahid heads to a bakery to buy everyone pastries. "All these characters that you see in this film were inspired by conversations that I had in prison, by stories people told me about the violence and the brutality of the Iranian government, violence that has been ongoing for more than four decades now," says Panahi. "In a way, I'm not the one who made this film. It's the Islamic Republic that made this film, because they put me in prison. Maybe if they want to stop us being so subversive, they should stop putting us in jail." No escape, no exile Despite a career defined by resistance, Panahi insists he's simply doing the only thing he knows how. "During my 20-year ban, even my closest friends had given up hope that I would ever make films again," he said at the Cannes press conference for It Was Just An Accident. "But people who know me know I can't change a lightbulb. I don't know how to do anything except make films". While many Iranian filmmakers have fled into exile - including Panahi's close friend Mohammad Rasoulof, director of the Oscar-nominated The Seed of the Sacred Fig, who now lives in Berlin — Panahi says he has no plans to join them. "I'm completely incapable of adjusting to another society," he says. "I had to be in Paris for three and a half months for post-production, and I thought I was going to die." In Iran, he explained, filmmaking is a communal act of improvisation and trust. "At 2AM I can call a colleague and say: 'That shot should be longer.' And he'll come join me and we'll work all night. In Europe, you can't work like this. I don't belong." So, even after his Cannes triumph, Panahi will return home. "As soon as I finish my work here, I will go back to Iran the next day. And I will ask myself: What's my next film going to be?"
Epoch Times
25-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Epoch Times
Iranian Dissident Wins Top Prize at Cannes Film Festival for Prison-Inspired Film
Iranian filmmaker and longtime regime critic Jafar Panahi has won the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival in France for the film 'It Was Just an Accident,' a revenge drama rooted in his experiences behind bars. Panahi was presented the Palme d'Or—the coveted top prize at the iconic festival—by actress Cate Blanchett on May 24 in a ceremony that marked a career high for the 63-year-old director whose work has long challenged Iran's ruling establishment. The award comes three years after Panahi was imprisoned for allegedly spreading propaganda against the regime in Tehran—a sentence he protested with a hunger strike. Barred from international travel for over 15 years, Panahi continued making films in secret in Iran, including the acclaimed 'This Is Not a Film,' shot in his living room, and 'Taxi,' set entirely in a car. But this year, he appeared in person at Cannes, where he called for resistance against repression. 'Let us join forces,' Panahi told the crowd at Cannes. 'No one should tell us what kind of clothes we should wear, or what we should or shouldn't do.' Inspired by his time in prison, 'It Was Just an Accident' tells the story of a group of former inmates who encounter the man who once terrorized them—and must decide whether to take justice into their own hands. The film has been described as a blend of minimalist storytelling and political urgency, marked by themes that have defined Panahi's career, like freedom and resistance against tyranny. 'Through his cinema, which is minimalist yet deeply political, the Iranian director who often uses a semi-documentary style cinema that blurs the lines between fiction and reality, never stops questioning the fragility of individual freedoms and the complexity of social connections in a society that is governed by censorship and the unspoken,' reads a Related Stories 5/21/2025 5/18/2025 Panahi said he plans to return to Iran on Sunday, resisting the path of exile taken by fellow Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof, who fled to Germany last year after escaping a prison sentence and premiered his latest work at Cannes. The film festival's closing night was nearly derailed by a regional blackout across southeastern France that authorities suspect was caused by arson. Power was restored in Cannes just hours before the stars began walking the red carpet. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
New Indian Express
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New Indian Express
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. These and other films of Panahi's premiered to considerable acclaim at international film festivals where the director's conspicuous absence was sometimes noted by an empty chair. When his last film, 2022's 'No Bears,' debuted, he was in jail. Only after his hunger strike made worldwide news was Panahi — who had gone to Tehran's Evin Prison to inquire about his friend, the then-jailed filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof — released, in early 2023. Two years later, with his travel ban finally lifted, Panahi arrived at the Cannes Film Festival with a film, 'It Was Just an Accident,' riven with the fury and pain of incarceration by the Islamic Republic. 'Being here does matter, of course. But what's even more important is that the film is here,' Panahi said in an interview on a Palais terrace. 'Even when I went to jail, I was happy that the film was done. I didn't mind being in prison because my job was done.' Yet Panahi's appearance in Cannes, where the film premiered Tuesday, carries tremendous meaning — and risk — for a filmmaker who has played such a massive role in international cinema in absentia. But for a director who has previously had his films smuggled out of Iran on USB drives, risk is a constant for Panahi. 'Yes, this is an ongoing risk,' he says, speaking through an interpreter. 'Now it will probably be higher. But the Iran situation is unpredictable. It changes everyday. New politics everyday. So we have to see what happens the day we go back.'
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
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. These and other films of Panahi's premiered to considerable acclaim at international film festivals where the director's conspicuous absence was sometimes noted by an empty chair. When his last film, 2022's 'No Bears,' debuted, he was in jail. Only after his hunger strike made worldwide news was Panahi — who had gone to Tehran's Evin Prison to inquire about his friend, the then-jailed filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof — released, in early 2023. Two years later, with his travel ban finally lifted, Panahi arrived at the Cannes Film Festival with a film, 'It Was Just an Accident,' riven with the fury and pain of incarceration by the Islamic Republic. 'Being here does matter, of course. But what's even more important is that the film is here,' Panahi said in an interview on a Palais terrace. 'Even when I went to jail, I was happy that the film was done. I didn't mind being in prison because my job was done.' Yet Panahi's appearance in Cannes, where the film premiered Tuesday, carries tremendous meaning — and risk — for a filmmaker who has played such a massive role in international cinema in absentia. But for a director who has previously had his films smuggled out of Iran on USB drives, risk is a constant for Panahi. 'Yes, this is an ongoing risk,' he says, speaking through an interpreter. 'Now it will probably be higher. But the Iran situation is unpredictable. It changes everyday. New politics everyday. So we have to see what happens the day we go back.' Last year, in order to reach Cannes, Panahi's countryman Rasoulof crossed the Iranian border on foot before resettling in Germany. (His film, 'The Seed of the Sacred Fig,' was ultimately nominated for best international film at the Oscars.) Panahi says they speak every other day. After the premiere of 'It Was Just an Accident,' Rasoulof texted Panahi to congratulate him on the moment. Unlike Rasoulof, though, Panahi — whose 'No Bears' captured him emotionally gazing across, but not crossing, the border — has no plans to flee. 'I'm flying back to Tehran on Sunday,' he says. 'It's simple. I'm unable to live here,' he elaborates. 'I have no ability to adapt to a new country, a new culture. Some people have this ability, this strength. I don't.' What Panahi does have, as his latest film shows once again, is the ability to deftly lace complicated feelings of resistance, sorrow and hope into gripping movies of elegant, if heartbreaking, composition. In 'It Was Just an Accident,' which is in competition for the Palme d'Or in Cannes, a man named Vahid (played by Vahid Mobasser) believes he sees his former captor and torturer. Though blindfolded while imprisoned, Vahid recognizes the sound of the man's prosthetic leg. He abducts him, takes him to the desert and begins to bury him in the ground. But to satisfy pangs of doubt, Vahid decides to confirm his suspicion by bringing the man, locked in his van, to other former prisoners for identification. In this strange odyssey, they are all forced to confront revenge or forgiveness for the man who ruined their lives. Panahi drew from his own imprisonment but also from the stories of detainees jailed alongside him. 'It was the experience of all these people I met in prison, mixed with my own perception and experience,' said Panahi. 'For instance, the fact of never seeing the face of your interrogator is everyone's experience. But then the people who have spent over a decade in prison have more experience than myself, so I've been very sensitive to their narratives.' 'It Was Just an Accident' may be Panahi's most politically direct film yet. It's certainly his most anguished. That's a product of not just his personal experience in prison but of the protests in Iran following the death of Mahsa Amini. 'I think ultimately violence will be inevitable. And it's exactly what the regime wants, because it gives a justification to the repression,' says Panahi. 'The longer they remain and the more pressure they put on the people, the more the people will feel that they have no other solution. And that's when it will get dangerous.' That doesn't mean Panahi is without hope. 'The Iranians' struggle and fight for freedom is extremely precious,' he says. 'What people are doing is so impressive. The regime is just trying to divide us. That's all they focus on now, to create division between the people.' In Iran, film productions need to receive script approval from the government to shoot in public. Panahi refuses to do that, knowing they won't allow him to make the films he wants to. So committed is he to making film, he notes that the downside to being able to travel is that he might have to spend a year promoting his film, instead of making the next one. On Thursday, Neon acquired the North American distribution rights. 'There's nothing else I can do. Maybe if I had other abilities, I would have changed to something else,' Panahi says. 'When you know that's the only thing you can do, you find ways. Now, I've gotten used to it. It was harder at the beginning. There were less people doing underground films. We started this fashion, in a way, so there are ways we have learned and practiced, many of us.' More than perhaps any filmmaker on earth, you can expect Panahi to find a way to keep making movies, no matter the circumstances. 'I'll try,' he nods, 'at least.'
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Dissident Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi's presence in Cannes speaks volumes
CANNES, France (AP) — 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. These and other films of Panahi's premiered to considerable acclaim at international film festivals where the director's conspicuous absence was sometimes noted by an empty chair. When his last film, 2022's 'No Bears,' debuted, he was in jail. Only after his hunger strike made worldwide news was Panahi — who had gone to Tehran's Evin Prison to inquire about his friend, the then-jailed filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof — released, in early 2023. Two years later, with his travel ban finally lifted, Panahi arrived at the Cannes Film Festival with a film, 'It Was Just an Accident,' riven with the fury and pain of incarceration by the Islamic Republic. 'Being here does matter, of course. But what's even more important is that the film is here,' Panahi said in an interview on a Palais terrace. 'Even when I went to jail, I was happy that the film was done. I didn't mind being in prison because my job was done.' Yet Panahi's appearance in Cannes, where the film premiered Tuesday, carries tremendous meaning — and risk — for a filmmaker who has played such a massive role in international cinema in absentia. But for a director who has previously had his films smuggled out of Iran on USB drives, risk is a constant for Panahi. 'Yes, this is an ongoing risk,' he says, speaking through an interpreter. 'Now it will probably be higher. But the Iran situation is unpredictable. It changes everyday. New politics everyday. So we have to see what happens the day we go back.' Last year, in order to reach Cannes, Panahi's countryman Rasoulof crossed the Iranian border on foot before resettling in Germany. (His film, 'The Seed of the Sacred Fig,' was ultimately nominated for best international film at the Oscars.) Panahi says they speak every other day. After the premiere of 'It Was Just an Accident,' Rasoulof texted Panahi to congratulate him on the moment. Unlike Rasoulof, though, Panahi — whose 'No Bears' captured him emotionally gazing across, but not crossing, the border — has no plans to flee. 'I'm flying back to Tehran on Sunday,' he says. 'It's simple. I'm unable to live here,' he elaborates. 'I have no ability to adapt to a new country, a new culture. Some people have this ability, this strength. I don't.' What Panahi does have, as his latest film shows once again, is the ability to deftly lace complicated feelings of resistance, sorrow and hope into gripping movies of elegant, if heartbreaking, composition. In 'It Was Just an Accident,' which is in competition for the Palme d'Or in Cannes, a man named Vahid (played by Vahid Mobasser) believes he sees his former captor and torturer. Though blindfolded while imprisoned, Vahid recognizes the sound of the man's prosthetic leg. He abducts him, takes him to the desert and begins to bury him in the ground. But to satisfy pangs of doubt, Vahid decides to confirm his suspicion by bringing the man, locked in his van, to other former prisoners for identification. In this strange odyssey, they are all forced to confront revenge or forgiveness for the man who ruined their lives. Panahi drew from his own imprisonment but also from the stories of detainees jailed alongside him. 'It was the experience of all these people I met in prison, mixed with my own perception and experience,' said Panahi. 'For instance, the fact of never seeing the face of your interrogator is everyone's experience. But then the people who have spent over a decade in prison have more experience than myself, so I've been very sensitive to their narratives.' 'It Was Just an Accident' may be Panahi's most politically direct film yet. It's certainly his most anguished. That's a product of not just his personal experience in prison but of the protests in Iran following the death of Mahsa Amini. 'I think ultimately violence will be inevitable. And it's exactly what the regime wants, because it gives a justification to the repression,' says Panahi. 'The longer they remain and the more pressure they put on the people, the more the people will feel that they have no other solution. And that's when it will get dangerous.' That doesn't mean Panahi is without hope. 'The Iranians' struggle and fight for freedom is extremely precious,' he says. 'What people are doing is so impressive. The regime is just trying to divide us. That's all they focus on now, to create division between the people.' In Iran, film productions need to receive script approval from the government to shoot in public. Panahi refuses to do that, knowing they won't allow him to make the films he wants to. So committed is he to making film, he notes that the downside to being able to travel is that he might have to spend a year promoting his film, instead of making the next one. On Thursday, Neon acquired the North American distribution rights. 'There's nothing else I can do. Maybe if I had other abilities, I would have changed to something else,' Panahi says. 'When you know that's the only thing you can do, you find ways. Now, I've gotten used to it. It was harder at the beginning. There were less people doing underground films. We started this fashion, in a way, so there are ways we have learned and practiced, many of us.' More than perhaps any filmmaker on earth, you can expect Panahi to find a way to keep making movies, no matter the circumstances. 'I'll try,' he nods, 'at least.' ___ For more coverage of the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, visit
