Iranian director Jafar Panahi won the Palme d’Or at the 78th Cannes Film Festival for It Was Just an Accident, a film inspired by his time in prison. The win marks the sixth consecutive top prize for U.S. distributor Neon.
Panahi’s film follows five former prisoners who believe they’ve captured their torturer, though they were blindfolded during their arrests and can’t be sure of his identity. The film mixes dark humor with political critique.
Despite a ban on filmmaking since 2010, Panahi has continued working underground. His win is the first for an Iranian film since Abbas Kiarostami’s Taste of Cherry in 1997. In his speech, Panahi urged unity among Iranians, saying, “The most important thing is our country and its freedom.”
The ceremony concluded a chaotic final day marked by a regional power outage, though backup generators kept the show running. Jury president Juliette Binoche led the nine-member panel in presenting the awards.
American films were shut out this year, though Neon again held distribution rights to the top winner. The Grand Prix went to Sentimental Value by Norway’s Joachim Trier, about a filmmaker trying to reconnect with his daughter through art.
Nadia Melliti won Best Actress for Little Sister, playing a teen exploring her identity in a conservative Paris community. The Secret Agent won Best Actor (Wagner Moura) and Best Director (Kleber Mendonça Filho).
John C. Reilly lightened the evening by singing “La Vie en Rose” before presenting Best Screenplay to Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne for Young Mothers.
The Jury Prize was split between Sirat by Olivier Laxe, a desert-set postapocalyptic tale, and Sound of Falling by Germany’s Mascha Schilinski. Chinese director Bi Gan received a special prize for Resurrection, an ambitious film spanning a century of cinema.
Hasan Hadi won the Camera d’Or for The President’s Cake, the first Cannes award ever for an Iraqi film.
This year’s jury included international artists such as Alba Rohrwacher, Payal Kapadia, Leïla Slimani, Halle Berry, Jeremy Strong, and Hong Sangsoo.
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