As Iranian director Jafar Panahi’s It Was Simply An Accident was declared winner of the Cannes Movie Competition’s Palme d’Or on Saturday night, one of many first questions from the Deadline crew was: “May it go to Oscars?”.
It’s an apparent query given the Oscar observe report of latest Palme d’Or winners Anora, Anatomy of a Fall and Parasite.
Nonetheless, it’s unlikely that Iran’s Islamic Republic authorities will permit Panahi’s movie to be put ahead because the nation’s Finest Worldwide Characteristic Movie submission for the 2026 Oscars.
Apart from Panahi’s outspoken stance towards its stranglehold on democracy which has twice landed him in jail, the movie is extremely vital of Iran’s penal system on the again of the director’s personal firsthand experiences.
Billed as “a strong assertion for humanity” by Deadline critic Pete Hammond in his evaluation, It Was Simply An Accident follows wrongfully incarcerated working-class individuals who search revenge towards the guard who tortured and berated them.
Iran has loved success on the Academy Awards up to now with Asghar Farhadi successful the Finest Worldwide Characteristic Movie twice, for A Separation and The Salesman in 2012 and 2017 respectively.
Nonetheless, within the gentle of the Girls Life Freedom protests, Farhadi has left Iran and stated he is not going to make a movie there till the nation’s obligatory hijab rule is lifted.
Dissident filmmakers by no means get previous the primary put up of being submitted.
Exiled Iranian director Mohamed Rasoulof loved an awards season run along with his movie The Seed Of The Sacred Fig for the 2025 Oscars, however because the entry for Germany.
The movie, which premiered at Cannes, successful the Jury Particular Prize, was produced below the banner of Rasoulof’s Germany-based Runway Footage. The director is now primarily based in Germany, having lived there on and off up to now.
With assist out of France from co-producer Les Movie Pelléas and distributor Memento Distribution, might Panahi’s movie doubtlessly go down the same route as France’s entry?
With so many homegrown French titles vying for this slot too, it feels unlikely that France would sacrifice its entry for a non-French-language movie.
The movie can also be co-produced by Luxembourgish firm Bidibul Productions, might there be an angle there?
The opposite tried and examined awards run route for the image will most probably be Neon, which acquired North American rights earlier this week.
It marks Neon’s sixth Palme d’Or winner acquisition in row, and the distributor has performed Cannes victors proud within the awards race up to now.
It famously received behind Justine Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall, after it was snubbed as France’s submission for the 2024 Oscars.
Neon gave it a buzzy awards seasons run nonetheless which resulted in a Finest Screenplay Academy Award, amongst a raft of different prizes.
Within the backdrop, the Impartial Iranian Filmmakers Affiliation (IIFMA), representing exiled and dissident Iranian filmmakers, has known as on the Academy of Movement Image Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) to rethink its relationship with Iran’s government-controlled Farabi cinema org which at the moment oversees the nation’s Oscar submission course of.
There have additionally been separate calls up to now for AMPAS to create a Finest Worldwide Characteristic Movie class giving illustration to exiled filmmakers, in the same solution to how the Worldwide Olympics Committee has gotten behind a refugee crew made up of exiled sports activities individuals.
Nonetheless, whereas Panahi’s daughter lives in Paris, the director has made it clear in previous interviews that he has no want to reside outdoors of Iran on a everlasting foundation.
A method or one other, we hope to see Panahi’s It Was Simply An Accident among the many awards season contenders later this yr.
