The presence of the Iranian filmmaker of the dissident Jafar Panahi in Cannes speaks a lot

The presence of the Iranian filmmaker of the dissident Jafar Panahi in Cannes speaks a lot

Cannes, France – Before this week, the dissident Iranian filmmaker Jaafar Panahi He had not attended the premiere of one of his films in more than 15 years.

Panahi, one of the main international directors, was prohibited from traveling outside Iran in 2009 for attending the funeral of a student killed in the protests of the green movement, a trial later extended to two decades. But even when it was placed under house arrest, Panahi continued making films, many of which are among the most praised of the century. He made “this not a movie” from 2011 on an iPhone in his living room. “Taxi” (2015) shot clandestinely almost completely inside a car.

These and other Panahi films premiered with considerable acclamation at the International Film Festivals where the director’s empty film consumption chair. When his last film, “No Bears” of 2022, he debuted, he was in jail. Only after His hunger strike is world news It was Panahi, who had gone to the Evin de Tehran prison to ask about his friend, the then cut Mohammad Rasoulf filmmaker – released, in early 2023.

Two years later, with its prohibition of finally traveling, Panahi arrived at the Cannes Film Festival with a film, “it was just an accident”, full of fury and pain of the imprisonment of the Islamic Republic.

“Being here matters, of course. But what is even more important is that the movie is here,” Panahi said in an interview on a Palais terrace. “Even when I went to jail, I was happy that the movie has finished. I didn’t care to be in prison because my work was over.”

However, the appearance of Panahi in Cannes, where the film premiered on Tuesday, entails a tremendous meaning, and risk, for a filmmaker who has played such a massive role in international cinema in absence. But for a director who had previously been smuggled with his Iran films in USB units, the risk is a constant for Panahi.

“Yes, this is a continuous risk,” he says, speaking through an interpreter. “Now it will probably be higher. But Iran’s situation is unpredictable. It changes every day. New policy every day. So we have to see what happens the day we return.”

Last year, to get to Cannes, Panahi Rasooulof’s compatriot crossed the Iranian border on foot Before resetting in Germany. (His film, “The Seed of the Sacred Fig”, was finally nominated for the best international film in the Oscars). Panahi says they speak every two days. After the premiere of “It was just an accident,” Rasoulof sent a text message to Panahi to congratulate him for the moment.

However, unlike Rasooulof, Panahi, whose “not bears” he was emotionally captured by looking, but not crossing, the border, he has no plans to flee.

“I’m flying back to Tehran on Sunday,” he says.

“It’s simple. I can’t live here,” he elaborates. “I have no capacity to adapt to a new country, a new culture. Some people have this ability, this force. I do not.”

What Panahi has, as his last movie show once again, is the ability to skill with skillfully complicated feelings of resistance, sadness and hope in exciting films of elegant composition, although heartbreaking.

In “IT it was just an accident”, which is the responsibility of the golden palm in Cannes, a man named Vahid (played by Vahid Mobasser) believes that he sees his former captor and torturer. Although with bandaged eyes while he is imprisoned, Vahid recognizes the sound of man’s prosthetic leg. He kidnaps it, takes him to the desert and begins to bury him on the ground.

But to satisfy doubts, Vahid decides to confirm his suspicion bringing the man, locked in his truck, to other former prisoners for identification. In this strange odyssey, everyone is forced to face revenge or forgiveness for the man who ruined their lives. Panahi took out of his own imprisonment, but also from the stories of imprisoned detainees with him.

“It was the experience of all these people I met in prison, mixed with my own perception and experience,” Panahi said. “For example, the fact of never seeing your interrogator’s face is everyone’s experience. But then the people who have spent more than a decade in prison have more experience than me, so I have been very sensitive to their narratives.”

“It was just an accident” can be the most direct Panahi movie so far. It is certainly the most distressed. That is a product not only of your personal experience in prison, but also of Protests in Iran after the death of Mahsa Amini.

“I think, ultimately, violence will be inevitable. And it is exactly what the regime wants, because it gives a justification to repression,” says Panahi. “The more they remain and the more pressure exert over the people, the more the people who have no other solution will feel. And that is when it will become dangerous.”

That does not mean that Panahi has no hope.

“The struggle of the Iranians and the struggle for freedom is extremely precious,” he says. “What people are doing is so impressive. The regime is only trying to divide. That is all that they focus now, to create division between people.”

In Iran, cinematographic productions must receive the approval of the government script to shoot in public. Panahi refuses to do that, knowing that they will not allow him to make the movies he wants. So committed is to make a movie, he points out that the disadvantage of being able to travel is that he could have to spend a year promoting his film, instead of doing the next. On Thursday, Neon acquired the distribution rights of North America.

“There is nothing else I can do. Maybe if I had other skills, I would have changed something else,” says Panahi. “When you know that it is the only thing you can do, you find ways. Now, I have become accustomed. It was more difficult at the beginning. There were fewer people making underground films. We started this fashion, somehow, so there are ways in which we have learned and practiced, many of us.”

More than perhaps any filmmaker on Earth can expect Panahi to find a way to continue making films, regardless of circumstances.

“I will try,” nods, “at least.”

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For more coverage of the Cannes 2025 Film Festival, visit https://apnews.com/hub/cannes-film-festival.

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