Exiled Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulov has hailed Jafar Panahi’s Palme d’Or win at the Cannes Film Festival as “a powerful blow to the machinery of repression in the Islamic Republic.”
Panahi won the top prize for It Was Just an Accident, a revenge drama shot in secret. The award is seen as a major victory for Iran’s embattled filmmakers working under state censorship.
In a joint statement with producers Kaveh Farnam and Farzad Pak, Rasoulov—who fled Iran in May to avoid prison for his film The Seed of the Sacred Fig—praised Panahi and his team for their courage. “They resisted threats and pressure during the film’s difficult and clandestine production,” the statement read.
Panahi, banned for over 14 years from traveling or making films, was allowed to attend Cannes after his travel ban was lifted in 2023. Onstage, he urged unity among Iranians. “Let’s set aside all differences. What matters now is our country and its freedom,” he said, joined by unveiled actresses from the film.
It Was Just an Accident tells the story of former political prisoners who kidnap a man they believe to be their past torturer. The film, inspired by Panahi’s prison experience, adds to his previous top festival wins at Berlin and Venice.
Asked whether he feared returning to Iran, Panahi told AFP: “Not at all. Tomorrow we are leaving.”
While Iran’s state news agency IRNA reported the Cannes win, top English-language outlets in the country largely ignored it. Rasoulov’s statement ended on a hopeful note: “Iran’s censorship-defying cinema is now more alive than ever. We believe in the future of a free, humane, and liberating Iranian cinema.”
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