San Francisco Frontiers - Iranian filmmaker Panahi urges 'freedom' as he wins Cannes top prize

The latest film from the 64-year-old, "It Was Just an Accident", tells the tale of five ordinary Iranians confronted with a man they believed tortured them in jail.

The core of the political and wry drama examines the moral dilemma faced by people if they are given an opportunity to take revenge on their oppressors.

Panahi used his own experiences in jail to write the screenplay.

"Let's set aside all problems, all differences. What matters most right now is our country and the freedom of our country," he told the VIP-studded audience on the French Riviera.

The leading light in the Iranian New Wave cinema movement has vowed to return to Tehran after the Cannes Festival despite the risks of prosecution.

Banned from making films in 2010 and imprisoned twice, Panahi argued that cinema should be a space for free expression.

"No one has the right to tell you what you (filmmakers) should do and what you should not do," he told the audience, according to remarks in Persian which were translated into French by an interpreter.

Iran was shaken by the "Women, Life, Freedom" protests in 2022 sparked by after the death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini after she was arrested for allegedly flouting dress rules for women.

The demonstrations were quashed in a crackdown that saw thousands detained, according to the United Nations, and hundreds shot dead by security forces, according to activists.

- Fairytale -

Among the other Cannes awards, Brazil's Wagner Moura, best known for playing Pablo Escobar in "Narcos" -- picked up the best actor award for his performance in police thriller "The Secret Agent".

Its director, Kleber Mendonca Filho, also won the best director prize, making it a good evening for Brazil.

France's Nadia Melliti continued her fairytale fortnight in Cannes by clinching the gong for best actress.

Melliti, who was spotted in the street by a casting agent and had never appeared in a film, plays a 17-year-old Muslim girl struggling with her homosexuality in Hafsia Herzi's "The Little Sister".

"Sentimental Value" by Norway's Joachim Trier, a moving family drama given a 19-minute standing ovation on Thursday, picked up the second prize Grand Prix.

- Sabotage -

Saturday's closing ceremony was the final act of a drama-filled day in Cannes that saw the glitzy seaside resort suffer a more than five-hour power cut.

The outage knocked out traffic lights and had visitors and locals scrambling for paper money because cash machines were out-of-order and restaurants were left unable to process card payments.

Local officials said a suspected arson attack on a substation and vandalism of an electricity pylon had caused the disruption.

German director Mascha Schilinski joked that she had "had difficulty writing her speech" because of the black-out as she accepted a jury prize for her "Sound of Falling".

- Politics -

Panahi has won a host of prizes at European film festivals and showcased his debut film "The White Balloon" in Cannes in 1995 which won an award for best first feature.

The head of the Cannes 2025 jury, French actress Juliette Binoche, paid tribute to "It Was Just an Accident".

"This is a film that emerges from a place of resistance, a place of survival, and it felt essential to bring it put it on top today," she told reporters afterwards.

"Art will always prevail, humanity will always prevail."

Panahi has always refused to stop making films and his efforts to smuggle them out to foreign distributors and film festivals has become the stuff of legend.

A year after being handed a 20-year ban on filmmaking in 2010 he dispatched a documentary with the cheeky title "This is Not a Film" to the Cannes Festival on a flash drive stashed in a cake.

"I'm alive as long as I'm making films. If I'm not making films, then what happens to me no longer matters," he told AFP this week.

I.Sanders--SFF