Iran can’t seem to stop Jafar Panahi. Over the last several decades, the country’s government has banned the celebrated filmmaker from making movies, prohibited him from leaving the country, and stuck him in jail for months at a time. On each occasion, he has found new ways to keep his creativity going, directing bold and original movies under threat of censorship that have amounted to some of the best cinematic storytelling of the 21st century. 

Even the limits on his work have inspired him. Prevented from international travel and facing a 20-year filmmaking ban, he made a wry and self-referential movie about his circumstances in his apartment and titled it This Is Not a Film, then smuggled the results out of the country on a USB drive buried in a pastry. Later, when he needed work, he got a job driving a cab – then installed a covert camera and shot an entire movie in the confines of the vehicle. The wondrous and endearing Taxi won the top prize at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2015. 

Now comes It Was Just an Accident, which is Panahi’s biggest gamble yet. The winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes earlier this year, Panahi’s latest movie is his first project after he was jailed by Iranian authorities for almost seven months in 2022. Even without that startling real-world backdrop, though, the movie amounts to an extraordinary filmmaking achievement: It’s a gripping thriller about the nature of justice under persecution, a minimalist morality tale, and an existential black comedy with shades of Waiting for Godot. 

At its center is a former prisoner Vahid (Vahid Mobasseri) who kidnaps a peg-legged man (Ebrahim Azizi) and throws him in the back of his van. Vahid isn’t sure, but suspects he’s found the government agent who tortured him in prison and left him permanently traumatized. As he zips around town to solicit the insights of other former prisoners, Vahid struggles to make sense of his emotions and whether his former captor deserves the worst – assuming he’s got the right guy. 
It’s a riveting, immersive masterwork all the more impressive given the secretive conditions under which Panahi worked. “Jafar shoots in secret and that it’s essential to maintain the secret about the film,” producer Phillipe Martin told me by phone this past week. “You can’t take any risks with that.” Panahi knew the government was keeping an eye on him, so he expect he would need to finish the movie out of the country. That’s why he turned to Martin, the French producer whose credits include previous Palme d’Or winner Anatomy of a Fall.

Shortly after Panahi’s travel ban was lifted in 2023, he met with Martin in Paris. “He just said that unlike his other films, this was a film that he couldn’t make entirely in Iran, so he needed partners to get the film done,” Martin said. “He just said that unlike his other films, this was a film that he couldn’t make entirely in Iran, so he needed partners to get the film done.” But Martin couldn’t help immediately as it was illegal to wire funds from France to Iran. “I told him that once he had shot the film, I would produce and provide him the money for the expenses he had had to date, and I would finish the film with him,” Martin said. “There was a lot of work that was needed, so I had to take a very big risk in order to produce this film and honor my commitment to Jafar without knowing whether I would have any partners at all.” 

Ultimately, the movie was completed with funds from the French financing body known as the CNC as well as ARTE and other entities. As a result, It Was Just an Accident is now France’s official Oscar submission for Best International Feature Film. Each country submits one film per year, and Iran’s Ministry of Culture selects its entry. Iran has never submitted Panahi’s work for consideration, though the filmmaker has now won top prizes at most major film festivals. “The mere existence of this film owes a great deal to France,” Martin said. “I’m so happy that thanks to French financing, Jafar Panahi, who’s been making films for 30 years, can for the first time compete for the Oscar.” 

Panahi lives in a state of constant uncertainty. “He may not be allowed to go to Cannes. He may be allowed to come home from Cannes, but then never leave Iran again. All of this is omnipresent in what he does, but it doesn’t prevent him from doing anything,” Martin said. “It doesn’t prevent him from making his films. It doesn’t prevent him from going back to Iran. There’s always a huge risk when he does his work.” 
All of that attests to the tremendous courage and commitment that motivates Panahi as a filmmaker – but it also helps that he’s a talented storyteller, too. It Was Just an Accident vibrates with the same unpredictability and passion that surrounds Panahi’s career. While the plot revolves around the specter of violence and revenge, it questions the discomfort surrounding these themes, and what it would mean for the world if society pretended they didn’t exist. Rather than living in denial, Panahi confronts the truth, one powerful frame at a time. All you have to do is watch the movies to recognize that it’s worth the risk.