{"id":842840,"date":"2025-12-04T11:07:00","date_gmt":"2025-12-04T08:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=842840"},"modified":"2025-12-04T11:07:00","modified_gmt":"2025-12-04T08:07:00","slug":"it-was-just-an-accident-a-banned-filmmakers-most-dangerous-work-yet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=842840","title":{"rendered":"It Was Just An Accident: A banned filmmaker\u2019s most dangerous work yet"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"article-body wrapper\">\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p>Before 2025, Jafar Panahi hadn\u2019t been interviewed since 2010. The 65-year-old Iranian director is behind powerful, often darkly funny dramas like<span>\u00a0<\/span><em>White Balloon<\/em>,<span>\u00a0<\/span><em>No Bears<\/em>, and<span>\u00a0<\/span><em>This Is Not a Film<\/em>. He\u2019s also a political figure who, in 2010, was locked up in Iran\u2019s Evin Prison, where he was released a few months later with a ban on filmmaking, speaking to the press, and leaving the country. Panahi\u2019s crime? He tried shooting a film about life under the Iranian regime.<\/p>\n<p>In 2022, Panahi was imprisoned again when he questioned the arrest of his fellow filmmakers Mohammad Rasoulof and Mostafa al-Ahmad. After a widely publicised hunger strike, Panahi was released from Evin Prison in 2023 with a determination to write and direct a film about his latest period of incarceration. Shot in secret in Tehran,<span>\u00a0<\/span><em>It Was Just an Accident<\/em><span>\u00a0<\/span>went on to win the Palme d\u2019Or at this year\u2019s Cannes.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe sat through interrogation sessions, blindfolded, in front of a wall, and the sound that we all heard just gradually penetrated us,\u201d Panahi tells me through an interpreter, Sheida Dayani. \u201cLater, when we were in a communal space, we would tell our stories. I heard from people who had been in the prison for 15 years. Afterwards, when I was outside, I was thinking about what I could do for my friends who were still in the prison.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In Tehran, Vahid (Vahid Mobasseri), a former political prisoner, is a car mechanic who\u2019s disarmed when he hears the entry of a customer, Eghbal (Ebrahim Azizi), whose squeaky walk \u2013 he has a prosthetic leg \u2013 reminds him of the unseen figure who tortured him. Reacting impulsively, Vahid kidnaps Eghbal, buries him alive, but then pauses: what if this isn\u2019t, as the prisoners nicknamed him, Peg Leg?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"src-youtube video-container embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"media-youtube\" data-id=\"9oHw2ubyWE4\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" allowfullscreen frameborder height=\"422\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/9oHw2ubyWE4\" webkitallowfullscreen width=\"750\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p>Like a morality play,<span>\u00a0<\/span><em>It Was Just an Accident<\/em><span>\u00a0<\/span>presents multiple perspectives to debate whether violence could ever be justified. Paranoid that he\u2019s kidnapped an innocent man, Vahid drives Eghball (tied up in a van, vehemently denying the allegations) to other formerly blindfolded figures from prison. They all disagree on whether Eghbal should be killed or freed, or if he\u2019s even Peg Leg. While none of them saw their interrogator with their eyes, some insist that Eghbal\u2019s smell, voice and footsteps are instantly recognisable.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBecause people are blindfolded during interrogation sessions, their auditory sense is the strongest, and therefore sound is very important,\u201d says Panahi. \u201cThe moving engine of the film has to be the sound.\u201d The thriller\u2019s most nerve-wracking sequence doesn\u2019t involve dialogue or action; it\u2019s simply Vahid hearing, or possibly imagining, the squeaky footsteps of someone approaching him.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI thought that if we could hear those footsteps in the silence, the more it\u2019s going to capture the minds of the audience,\u201d says Panahi. \u201cWe hear it in the first 10 minutes of the film, and then we don\u2019t hear it again until the last two minutes. It had to be a very particular sound.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<blockquote>\n<p>We sat through interrogation sessions, blindfolded, in front of a wall, and the sound that we all heard just gradually penetrated us. Later, we would tell our stories. I heard from people who had been in the prison for 15 years<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p>During his filmmaking ban, Panahi directed a number of films that starred himself, including<span>\u00a0<\/span><em>Taxi<\/em>,<span>\u00a0<\/span><em>3 Faces<\/em>, and the wryly titled<span>\u00a0<\/span><em>This Is Not a Film<\/em>. The accompanying ban on interviews meant that the work spoke for itself:<span>\u00a0<\/span><em>3 Faces<\/em><span>\u00a0<\/span>won Best Screenplay at Cannes;<span>\u00a0<\/span><em>Taxi<\/em><span>\u00a0<\/span>won the Golden Bear at Berlin. It also meant that misconceptions spread and weren\u2019t corrected. Practically every article written about Panahi since 2011 has claimed that<span>\u00a0<\/span><em>This Is Not a Film<\/em><span>\u00a0<\/span>was smuggled into Cannes via a USB stick hidden in a cake.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe story with the USB stick in a cake \u2013 it\u2019s not true,\u201d says Panahi. \u201cI also read people say I was under house arrest. I was banned from leaving my country, not banned from leaving my home. In<span>\u00a0<\/span><em>Taxi<\/em>, I drive people around the city, yet people still say I\u2019m under house arrest? I\u2019m making a film in a faraway village by the border, yet people still say I\u2019m under house arrest? It\u2019s really strange, but now I\u2019m desensitised to it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The characters of<span>\u00a0<\/span><em>It Was Just an Accident<\/em><span>\u00a0<\/span>compare their situation (and also a lone palm tree) to<span>\u00a0<\/span><em>Waiting for Godot<\/em>. The more apt reference might be Ariel Dorfman\u2019s 1990 play<span>\u00a0<\/span><em>Death and the Maiden<\/em>, which was turned into a 1994 film by Roman Polanski. In Dorfman\u2019s revenge-drama, a former political prisoner believes she\u2019s chanced upon her former interrogator: she recognises his voice, the smell of his breath, and various speech patterns.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<figure class=\"inline-img expandable dev-view-hide\" data-img=\"2ed144ec-2f58-49a7-acc4-b3a900b74a8e\" data-src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/2000\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1430\/2\/1432421.jpg\" data-img-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\" data-img-aspect-ratio=\"1.9\"><span class=\"has-css-custom-props image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"It Was Just An Accident\" class=\"img\" height=\"1582\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/786\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1430\/2\/1432421.jpg\" width=\"3000\"><\/span><\/span><figcaption class=\"img-caption\"><span class=\"caption\">It Was Just <span class=\"nowrap\">An Accident<\/span><\/span><span class=\"credit\">Les Films Pelleas<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p>However, Panahi dismisses the connection, even though he once planned to make a film of<em><span>\u00a0<\/span>Death and the Maiden<\/em>. \u201cThe main issue for me wasn\u2019t about the interrogator, or what had happened in prison, but what\u2019s going to happen in the future.<span>\u00a0<\/span><em>Death and the Maiden<\/em><span>\u00a0<\/span>was a post-regime story, but my film happens from inside a regime, and it\u2019s not clear what\u2019s going to happen afterwards.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He adds, \u201cAll dictatorships have similarities, and after this film, perhaps there will be more dictatorships and artworks that resemble this one. It\u2019s all about how people experience it. My film, the play, Polanski\u2019s film \u2013 you can\u2019t know what influenced what.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I ask Panahi if he thinks that one of his interrogators might at some point watch<span>\u00a0<\/span><em>It Was Just an Accident<\/em>. \u201cOne day, I got into an argument with my interrogator. He was talking about my films, such as<span>\u00a0<\/span><em>The Circle<\/em><span>\u00a0<\/span>and<span>\u00a0<\/span><em>Crimson Gold<\/em>. I said I\u2019m inspired by what happens in my society, because I\u2019m a socially engaged filmmaker. Certain things happen during the day that may seem insignificant, but they\u2019re what inspire me. I said to him, \u2018Now that you\u2019re interrogating me, this might show up in one of my films later on.\u2019 He said, \u2018You\u2019re going to make a film about me?\u2019 I said, \u2018No, but unconsciously it will make its way into my films.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<blockquote>\n<p>A filmmaker can\u2019t assess their strengths and weaknesses until they see the film with an audience<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p>Picked up by Neon and MUBI for respective US and UK distribution,<span>\u00a0<\/span><em>It Was Just an Accident<\/em><span>\u00a0<\/span>is in the midst of an awards push. Selected by France as its Oscar submission, it\u2019s practically guaranteed at least one trophy. Panahi is thus on an unlikely press tour. In 2022, the Supreme Court lifted his various bans, and the director has spent the second half of 2025 travelling around the world.<\/p>\n<p>When Panahi attended Cannes in May, it was his first time seeing one of his films with a crowd in nearly two decades. \u201cA filmmaker can\u2019t assess their strengths and weaknesses until they see the film with an audience,\u201d he says. \u201cIn Q&amp;As, people bring up things that were not on my mind at all, and there are things people interpret differently.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Like what? \u201cFor instance, the scene at the hospital. I saw people laughing. My friend said it\u2019s because they were going to kill a person, and now they\u2019re taking his family to the hospital. That\u2019s when I realised that cultural differences will lead to discrepancies. If this film is screened in Iran, no one is going to laugh at that scene, because it\u2019s a humanistic act that needs to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It Was Just an Accident<em>\u00a0is out in UK cinemas on December 5<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p> Source URL: https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/film-tv\/article\/69213\/1\/it-was-just-an-accident-jafar-panahi-interview<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Before 2025, Jafar Panahi hadn\u2019t been interviewed since 2010. The 65-year-old Iranian director is behind powerful, often darkly funny dramas like\u00a0White Balloon,\u00a0No Bears, and\u00a0This Is Not a Film. He\u2019s also a political figure who, in 2010, was locked up in Iran\u2019s Evin Prison, where he was released a few months later with a ban on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[76],"class_list":["post-842840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-dazeddigital-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=842840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842840\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=842840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=842840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=842840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}