It Was Just An Accident’ by Iran’s Jafar Panahi wins Cannes’ top prize

CANNES, France – Revenge thriller “It Was Just An Accident” by Iranian director Jafar Panahi, who was barred from filmmaking for 15 years by the government in Tehran, won the Palme d’Or top prize on Saturday. With the award, Panahi now has the rare honour of winning the top prize at all three major European film festivals, after nabbing Berlin’s Golden Bear for “Taxi” in 2015 and the Golden Lion at Venice for “The Circle” in 2000. The 64-year-old director, who last attended the festival in person in 2003, addressed his prize to all Iranians, saying the most important thing was Iran and the country’s freedom. “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,” he said, in an apparent reference to Iran’s strict Islamic dress code for women. The death in 2022 of a young Iranian Kurdish woman in the custody of the morality police for allegedly violating hijab rules sparked Iran’s biggest domestic unrest since the 1979 revolution that brought its clerical rulers to power. Panahi, who has been imprisoned several times in Iran, plans to retu

Read Full Article