Cannes, 25 May

Iranian dissident filmmaker Jafar Panahi won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival for his revenge thriller ‘It Was Just an Accident’, handing the festival’s top prize to a director who had been banned from leaving Iran for more than 15 years.

Cate Blanchett on Saturday presented the award to Panahi, who three years ago was imprisoned in Iran before going on a hunger strike. For a decade and a half, he has made films clandestinely in his native country, including one film (“This Is Not a Film”) made in his living room, and another (“Taxi”) set in a car.

The crowd rose in a thunderous standing ovation for the filmmaker, who immediately threw up his arms and leaned back in his seat in disbelief before applauding his collaborators and the audience around him.

On stage, Panahi was cheered by Cannes jury president Juliette Binoche, who in 2010 in Cannes held up Panahi’s name to honour the director when he was under house arrest.

Panahi said what mattered most was freedom in his country.

“Let us join forces,” said Panahi. “No one should dare tell us what kind of clothes we should wear, what we should do or what we should not do. The cinema is a society. Nobody is entitled to tell what we should or refrain from doing.”

The win for ‘It Was Just an Accident’ extended an unprecedented streak: The indie distributor Neon has now backed the last six Palme d’Or winners. The latest triumph for Neon, which acquired “It Was Just an Accident” for North American distribution after its premiere in Cannes, follows its Palmes for ‘Parasite’, ‘Titane’, ‘Triangle of Sadness’, ‘Anatomy of a Fall’ and ‘Anora’.

All those films were Oscar contenders and two, ‘Parasite’ and ‘Anora’, won best picture.

Last year, filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof fled Iran to attend the premiere of his film in Cannes and resettle in Germany. Panahi, though, has said that unlike his friend Rasoulof, life in exile isn’t for him. He planned to fly home to Tehran on Sunday.

‘It Was Just an Accident’ was inspired by Panahi’s experience in prison. In the film, a group of former prisoners encounter the man who terrorised them in jail, and weigh whether or not to kill him.

Panahi was jailed in Tehran’s Evin Prison after going there to inquire about the then-jailed Rasoulof. Panahi was released in 2023 after going on a hunger strike.

In 2009, he was banned from traveling out of Iran after attending the funeral of a student killed in the Green Movement protests. Through those years, Panahi continued to make films illegally in Iran, without a permit, and had his films smuggled to festivals on USB drives. His travel ban was lifted after his release in 2023.