Iranian Jafar Panahi wins Palme d'Or for “A Simple Accident,” “a great political film”

It's the Palme d'Or for "perseverance," emphasizes the specialist magazine Variety . Jafar Panahi received the Palme d'Or at the ^78th Cannes Film Festival on May 24 for A Simple Accident. "A great political film," praises Le Temps , which recalls the turbulent career of the Iranian filmmaker, "sentenced in 2010 to a twenty-year ban on filming and traveling, since then the author of numerous films shot clandestinely and finally free to move again." "The director," adds Variety, " continued to make films, even when expressly forbidden to do so - as in 2011, when Panahi flew This Is Not a Film on a USB stick in Cannes."

“Panahi’s film, his first since his release from prison in 2023, is a direct attack on Iran’s authoritarian regime,” The Hollywood Reporter noted . “The thriller follows a former political prisoner who kidnaps a man he believes to be his torturer, then debates with other dissidents whether to kill him or pardon him.”

“We are here with those who are suffering, not for political reasons, but for humanity,” said the jury president as she presented Jafar Panahi with his award, reports El País . The 64-year-old Iranian filmmaker was unequivocal in his speech: “The most important thing is our country and our country’s freedom. Let’s reach that moment, together, where no one dares to say what we should wear, what we should or should not do.”

We'll return to this Palme d'Or in more detail tomorrow with the reactions of the Iranian press. And on a well-curated list of awards, which rewarded, among others, Sentimental Value by Norwegian virtuoso Joachim Trier (Grand Prize), the great Brazilian filmmaker Kleber Mendonça Filho, for The Secret Agent (Best Director Award) and Nadia Melliti Best Actress Award for her formidable role in The Little Last One, by Hafsia Herzi (which also won the Queer Palm).