It Was Just An Accident - English subtitled
A darkly comic thriller by Jafar Panahi (Offside) about a former prisoner who, by chance, encounters the man who once tortured him in jail. He kidnaps him, but soon begins to doubt his identity. Winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes.
Garage owner Vahid is at work when a customer walks in with car trouble. Vahid is startled when – from the distinctive sound of his prosthetic leg – he recognises Eghbal, the intelligence officer who tortured him during his time in prison. He decides to take revenge, but after abducting Eghbal, he begins to question whether he has the right man. Together with a ragtag group of former inmates, he sets out to uncover the truth.
At the heart of It Was Just An Accident lies a powerful moral dilemma: will these men and women resort to the same methods of torture they once endured?
Director Jafar Panahi – whose work often critiques social and political issues in Iran – previously won the Golden Lion in Venice (The Circle) and the Golden Bear in Berlin (Taxi Tehran). This year, he added the Palme d’Or at Cannes to his accolades. His win was especially notable as Panahi was present to accept the award – a rare occurrence given his fraught relationship with the regime in his home country. In the past, he was banned from travelling and working, and sentenced to six years in prison. Nevertheless, Panahi stated in Cannes that he has no intention of choosing exile in Europe. ‘I can live and work nowhere but Iran,’ the filmmaker declared.