EXCLUSIVE: We are able to verify that Neon has picked up North American rights to Jafar Panahi’s well-received function It Was Simply an Accident, which had its world premiere in Competitors on the Cannes Movie Competition earlier this week.
It Was Simply an Accident has a one-line synopsis that reads: “What begins as a minor accident units in movement a sequence of escalating penalties.” The movie, which has been one of many best-reviewed films on the competition, offers in a fictional approach with previous wrongfully incarcerated working-class folks searching for revenge towards the guard who tortured and berated them. In his evaluate, Deadline’s Pete Hammond referred to as the film “a robust assertion for humanity” that “serves as a warning that you simply higher watch your again.”
The Wednesday afternoon screening was met with a 10-minute ovation — and was extremely vital as a result of Panahi himself was in attendance, marking the primary time he has been capable of seem on the competition in over 20 years.
Panahi, whose credit additionally embody The White Balloon, The Circle and Taxi, has spent most of his filmmaking profession within the crosshairs of Iran’s authoritarian Islamic Republic authorities, together with greater than a decade going through a number of detentions, jail sentences, home arrests and filmmaking and journey bans.
He was launched from his newest jail stint in February 2023, and within the manufacturing notes for It Was Simply an Accident, he says: “The sentence that banned me from making movies, writing, giving interviews and touring has been formally annulled. However in follow, I stay on the margins. … I’ve no alternative however to maintain working exterior the system.”
The filmmaker employed clandestine strategies to shoot It Was Simply an Accident and stated that earlier than wrapping, “plainclothes officers turned up and demanded all of the footage. I refused. They continued to place strain on us by threatening to arrest the crew and shut down manufacturing. Ultimately, they gave up. We paused the shoot for some time, then resumed. Nothing additional occurred.”
Neon has a sometimes stacked Cannes lineup now, with different Palme d’Or contenders together with A Sentimental Worth and The Secret Agent.
Panahi’s first function, The White Balloon (1995), was chosen for Administrators’ Fortnight at Cannes, the place it gained the Caméra d’Or. He returned to th Croisette with 2003’s Crimson Gold, which performed in Un Sure Regard and gained the Jury Prize. Initially chosen to symbolize Iran on the Oscars, Crimson Gold in the end was banned by the authorities, stopping it from being proven in Iranian cinemas.
