Culture catch-up: Jafar Panahi’s Palme d’Or win and the politics of Iranian cinema
In this week’s cultural review, we focus on Iranian director Jafar Panahi, whose latest film 'It Was Just an Accident' won the Palme d’Or at Cannes, despite being previously imprisoned and censored for his art.
READ MORE : http://www.euronews.com/2025/05/30/culture-catch-up-jafar-panahis-palme-dor-win-and-the-politics-of-iranian-cinema
Spark your senses, wake your wonder. Euronews Culture seeks to show creativity in action and inspire our audience to explore the world through the five senses. Start your journey through the best of Europe's arts, gastronomy, traditions and high-end craftsmanship.
In this week’s cultural review, we focus on Iranian director Jafar Panahi, whose latest film 'It Was Just an Accident' won the Palme d’Or at Cannes, despite being previously imprisoned and censored for his art.
READ MORE : http://www.euronews.com/2025/05/30/culture-catch-up-jafar-panahis-palme-dor-win-and-the-politics-of-iranian-cinema
Spark your senses, wake your wonder. Euronews Culture seeks to show creativity in action and inspire our audience to explore the world through the five senses. Start your journey through the best of Europe's arts, gastronomy, traditions and high-end craftsmanship.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Hello and welcome to this week's Culture Review. I'm your host, Tecumbo Salako.
00:04Joining me is my esteemed colleague, David Morrigan. David, how are you?
00:07I'm good, thank you. How are you?
00:08Yeah, not too bad, thanks. Well, this week we're concentrating on Cannes.
00:12Looking back at the Palme d'Or winner, the Iranian dissident, Jafar Pahani, and his film, It Was Just an Accident.
00:18David, he's not a household name, but he's a very revered director.
00:23Tell us, for people who don't know anything at all about him, what's his background?
00:27Well, as you said, it was just an accident on the Palme d'Or, and it's the first film since 1997 to do so,
00:35and at the time it was Taste of Cherry by Abbas Kiyostami.
00:39And Jafar Pahani is one of Iran's just greatest filmmakers, alongside the likes of Mohamed Razalov, for instance,
00:48and he is somebody who has clashed with the repressive Iranian authorities for many, many years now.
00:55He was placed under house arrest, arrested for endangering national security, and banned from travel.
01:02And in 2022, he was imprisoned for supporting his fellow filmmaker, Mohamed Razalov,
01:10and later went on a hunger strike and was released a year later.
01:15And it was just an accident.
01:17It was his first film since then.
01:19And it's worth saying that ever since all these years, Jafar Pahani has continued to make films in defiance of the repressive authorities.
01:31And these films have come to major European festivals.
01:34So, for example, in 2011, Jafar Pahani's film, This Is Not a Film, was smuggled out of Iran on a USB stick
01:44that was itself hidden inside a cake in order to get to the festival.
01:49In his film, Taxi Tehran, went to the Berlinale in 2015 and ended up winning the Golden Bear.
01:58And in 2022, his film No Bears was in Venice, where it won a special jury prize.
02:06So, genuinely, if anyone hasn't heard of Jafar Pahani, these are three very, very good films to start off with.
02:14David, you've had the chance to see the film. Tell us, what's it about?
02:18Well, it's first and foremost a richly deserved poem, I'll say that.
02:23It was shot in Iran secretly because Jafar Pahani did not have the permits from Iranian authorities
02:30and the film was later on edited in France.
02:34And because this film is an indictment of the Islamist Republic
02:39and criticizes the corruption and the sins of state despotism
02:44and also shows women not wearing a hijab at times.
02:48And this film is a very taut film compared to many other films in competition at Cannes this year.
02:56And it tells the story of a family, a father, a mother and their daughter,
03:01who are in a car who accidentally run over a dog.
03:04And the car breaks down and fortuitously breaks down in front of a shop
03:09where one person there offers to help out.
03:13And another person there, Vahid, seems to have a very visceral reaction
03:18to the father coming into the shop.
03:21And he recognizes a noise which seems to come from the father's prosthetic leg.
03:28And he believes that this is the man who is an intelligence officer,
03:34or who was an intelligence officer, who previously tortured him.
03:38And because of this uncertainty, but this very visceral reaction he has,
03:45he kidnaps the father and plans to bury him alive.
03:50But because of the protestations from the father figure,
03:55the seeds of doubt are sown.
03:58So what he does is goes off and seeks help and advice
04:02from other victims of this potential monster.
04:05People like a photographer, a bride-to-be and her husband,
04:10and this live wire of a man who is the only one
04:14who can positively identify the potential torturer
04:18because he has seen him without being blindfolded,
04:22like the others were, therefore the doubt.
04:27And essentially it's a film about the price of revenge,
04:30whether you should use violence to combat violence,
04:34what it does to your own humanity,
04:37how you can escape the trauma that has been inflicted,
04:41and whether that's at all possible.
04:43And it is, like I said, a taut, a gripping film, utterly engrossing.
04:49And one that surprised me in the sense that it's actually very humorous.
04:54There's some slapstick elements to this.
04:56And it is something which is rather remarkable in the sense that it talks about these very powerful things,
05:04these very dark things,
05:07but at the same time does so in a way that recalls Waiting for Godot,
05:11which is mentioned in the film,
05:12but also as if Waiting for Godot was spliced with Weekend at Bernie's.
05:16And I'll say one more thing without spoiling the film at all.
05:21Not only is it a very richly deserved poem,
05:24but the ending left my jaw on the floor.
05:28It's one of those moments, it's a very simply filmed scene
05:32and uses sound to a devastating effect.
05:36And it is almost like a horror film.
05:39Well, perhaps we can just have a quick clip of the film now before we go any further.
05:43Let's just see an extract from it right now.
06:09David Jou very, very well summed up his history with the Iranian government,
06:28that history of conflict that he's had with them.
06:30What reactions have there been, though, to this film, his latest work?
06:35Well, Panahi returned to Tehran
06:38at the beginning of the week
06:39and to great applause at the airport.
06:42There were scenes that went online,
06:45even people shouting Women Life Freedom,
06:49the slogan of the protests in 2022 and 2023.
06:54But there are still concerns for his well-being
06:57because obviously his previous films have been banned in the country
07:00and it is a very politically charged film
07:04that was made illegally in the eyes of the Iranian authorities
07:07and predictably the reactions have been very lukewarm
07:11from the Iranian state media and officials.
07:15There's even been a diplomatic row with France.
07:19The French foreign minister, Jean-Noël Barrault,
07:22reacted to the win of the film by saying that it was a gesture of resistance
07:26against the Iranian regime's oppression.
07:28And this, in turn, prompted Tehran to summon France's chargé d'affaires,
07:35as it's called, to protest against these comments,
07:37which were deemed insulting.
07:39And the foreign ministry spokesperson said, and I quote,
07:43I'm not an art expert, but we believe that artistic events
07:46and art in general should not be exploited to pursue political objectives.
07:50There's a lot to unpack there.
07:54Primarily, if you're not an art expert and you're talking about something
07:58that you don't know, then your opinion is null and void.
08:01But art is worth saying, I mean, there is a fundamental misunderstanding here
08:06that art is not created in a vacuum.
08:09It is a medium that reflects thoughts, emotions, empathy,
08:13and is a reflection of the world that goes on around us,
08:17even if it is hidden in layers of allegory.
08:21Not so here.
08:22But also to the words of Rashida Dati, the French minister of culture,
08:27who told Euronews with regards to a petition signed in Cannes this year
08:32by several artists with regards to the industry silence of the crimes happening in Gaza,
08:37that culture and politics go hand in hand.
08:40And moreover, this whole thing reminded me of a quote by Toni Morrison
08:45who said that the best art is political
08:47and that you ought to be able to make art that is unquestionably political
08:53but also irrevocably beautiful at the same time.
08:58And that's the thing.
08:59At the moment, people tend to think that art is either politically charged
09:04and therefore has very little artistic value
09:06or that it is art for art's sake and then doesn't have that is a bit vacant.
09:11No, these two things can coexist and films, cinema in general, feeds empathy,
09:17but not only that, it empowers consciousness.
09:21Indeed.
09:21Well, I'm not going to argue with your defence or Toni Morrison's defence of art,
09:26but, you know, Cannes is always under fire for whatever choices it makes
09:31and it's so easy for some people to look at this and say,
09:34this is just a political award.
09:36It's just, you know, they're putting it on a platform.
09:38You know, does, is this a worthy winner?
09:41It, well, as I've said, it is absolutely a worthy winner
09:45considering the other films that have won prizes this year.
09:48This one stood out, for me at least.
09:51And it's true.
09:53There are very often reactions towards Cannes.
09:56Oh, it's the self-congratulatory kind of,
09:59oh, well, of course it was going to win an award
10:01because it is politically charged.
10:03And that is, to put it mildly, utter rubbish
10:07because anyone who will get to see this film
10:10will understand why comments like that are tripe.
10:14But at the same time, there is, there have been reactions in certain media
10:19and even in people that I've talked to about the film winning
10:23who said, oh, well, this is the Cannes woke brigade at it again.
10:27And it's always this constant hammering of the word woke,
10:31which is essentially now the defense mechanism
10:35of all those who are trying to engage in culture wars, essentially,
10:40but also do this by commandeering this word,
10:44which has now lost all of its original meaning
10:46and use it in order to essentially stoke division
10:51and a climate of fear, even.
10:55And really, at this point, a discussion is, of course, necessary
11:00about the pitfalls of political correctness
11:03and how virtue signaling can be very, very frustrating.
11:08But at the same time, this is not the case here.
11:11And it is very tiresome to hear people automatically,
11:16without having seen the film, just bandy about this term,
11:20which, you know, the woke brigade, woke this, woke that.
11:23And these people should really look into the origins of that word
11:27and stop losing their intellectual credibility.
11:30Indeed, I couldn't agree with you more there.
11:32But let's talk now, get back focused,
11:34to talk about not only Jafar Bahani, but other Iranian films.
11:38Because you mentioned Mohamed Rasulov,
11:40who we had the pleasure of meeting and interviewing last year.
11:43For anyone who's looking to scratch beyond the surface,
11:47where should they start?
11:48Well, I'd refer them back to our two favorite films of last year,
11:53which were My Favorite Cake by Mariam Mogadam and Betash Saniha,
11:59who have also fallen foul of the repressive Iranian government,
12:03who weren't able to come to the Berlinale to present their film
12:06because of the travel ban.
12:08And Mohamed Rasulov, with The Seed of the Sacred Fig.
12:12These are films that deal with the protests in 2022 and 2023.
12:21And they are subversive in their own ways,
12:23in the way that they use very different cinematic languages
12:27to comment about what is going on in Iran.
12:29But they are, in and of themselves,
12:32absolutely stunning films on an artistic level,
12:35gripping in all the right ways.
12:38And we had the opportunity, as you say,
12:41to interview Mohamed Rasulov,
12:43who very movingly talked about his fellow filmmakers
12:47who were working in very difficult situations
12:50and who were transforming difficulties into acts of beauty.
12:56Indeed. Well, let's just hear now from the man himself
13:00and a small extract of what he told us just a few months ago
13:04about the conditions of making films in Iran.
13:06I love you.
13:08And I love you.
13:10They are so difficult, they are often in the world of people and they are often made into the world of services.
13:19We don't have to encourage that this is a way of being a way of being a way of being a way of being a way of being a way of being.
13:26They are also very difficult and it is a great work that they achieve.
13:36So yes, these are artists that work within the brutal confines of a regime
13:40and they offer windows into a part of the world
13:44and what is going on that Western audiences may not be aware of
13:49and they work in incredibly difficult circumstances
13:52and on an artistic level, they are incredible films
13:56but also they are films that should not be taken for granted
14:00by Western audiences who have the privilege
14:04to be able to see films by filmmakers who put it all on the line
14:09literally their lives on the line
14:11in order to have films that protest against and challenge oppression, tyranny, misogyny
14:19and do so in order to remind audiences that yes, these films provide escapism
14:25but they remind us that essentially cinema, like many, many art forms
14:30can still speak truth to power.
14:32David, thanks for joining us on this deep dive into the work of Jafar Bahani
14:37the Palme d'Or winner with his film, It Was Just an Accident
14:41Do join us again next week
14:42We'll be back with more in our Cultural Review
14:44Thank you
14:45Thank you
14:46Thank you
14:47Thank you
14:48Thank you