He received the Palme d’Or during the 78th edition of the Cannes Film Festival for the film “A simple accident”: who is the Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi?
At the end of the 78th edition of the Cannes Film Festival, the jury chaired by Juliette Binoche presented her Palme d’Or 2025 to the film A simple Jafar Panahi accident. Shot in illegality in Iran, this intense and overwhelming drama recounts the political revolt through a banal event. His characters see their destiny changing after an accident on the road.
Accustomed to the Cannes Film Festival, the Iranian filmmaker received the Golden Camera for his very first film, Le Ballon Blanc, already thirty years ago. In 2011, he was awarded a gold coach in Cannes for the whole of his work. Seven years later, Jafar Panahi won the scenario prize for three faces.
This year, the Iranian filmmaker has accessed the ultimate award, the Palme d’Or, for a simple accident. This prize rewards its new feature film, but also life, work and combat, as Juliette Binoche pointed out.
“We are here, with all those who suffer, not by political opinion, but by the heart, by compassion, tenderness, by shared humanity, for freedom, is found”said the president of the jury.
“Art provokes, questions, upsets. He disarves the old and surprises an unsuspected dimension in us. Art mobilizes the creative energy from the most precious, the most lively in us. A force that makes it possible to transform darkness into forgiveness, in hope, in new life. This is why we have chosen, for the palm of gold, a simple accident of Jafar Panahi”.
Jafar Panahi
Jafar Panahi, Iranian director who returns from a long fight and always in fighting
Born in 1960 in Miniah in Iran, Jafar Panahi, son of a building painter, grew up in the underprivileged districts of Tehran. After studying realization at the Tehran film and television college, Jafar Panahi achieves several short and medium -sized films for his country’s television.
It was in the 1990s that the filmmaker embarked on the creation of feature films, noticed at festivals, in Cannes, Locarno or Venice. Throughout his films, his cinema is considered subversive by the Iranian regime.
In 2010, Jafar Panahi was accused of propaganda against the Islamist Republic. He was then sentenced by Iranian justice to 6 years in prison for propaganda against the regime. Invited to be part of the official jury at the Cannes Film Festival, he was retained by the Iranian authorities in Evin prison. An empty chair in his name is symbolically installed next to the jury throughout the festival.
Placed in surveillance and prohibited from exit from territory, Jafar Panahi continues to make movies clandestinely, using other dissident and combative filmmakers, to question the condition of Iranian cinema and the Iranian regime.
The director was again arrested at the age of 62 in 2022. The Supreme Court canceled the conviction and ordered a new trial. He will not be released until 7 months later after a hunger strike and thirst to protest against the conditions of his detention in Evin prison.
Jacovides-Moreau / Bestimage
He was released on bail on February 3, 2023. Jafar Panahi could not leave Iran for the first time for almost 14 years, that at the end of April 2023 for a stay in France where his daughter lives, after delivering a passport by his country.
The speech turned towards the hope of Jafar Panahi, following his golden palm
“It’s hard to express myself. Thank you. Let me thank my family. Thank you. For all the time I was not present with them. I thank the whole team that accompanied me on this path to make the film together.
I also thank the French team who accompanied me for the post-production, Philippe Martin of the Pelléas films, Alexandre Mallet-Guy de Memento, and also MK2, our international distributor.
It would not have been possible to make this film without a committed team. I speak to all Iranians, regardless of their various opinions, and in the world, and I allow myself to ask them for one thing.
Let’s put all our problems and differences aside. The most important thing, at the moment, is our country and the freedom of our country. Let’s try to arrive at a time when no one should tell us what to wear as clothing, what we have to say and what we should not do.
Cinema is a company. No one should tell us what we have to do or should not do. Hopefully this day is coming. Thank you to everyone present and thank you at the Cannes Film Festival.“”
The film “A simple accident” by Jafar Panahi will be released in the cinema on September 10, 2025.
