Jafar Panahi comes to Sydney Film Festival at the last minute to open Palme-d'Or-winning film It Was Just An Accident
When I was first told that celebrated Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi was heading to Sydney for the Australian premiere of his latest film, It Was Just an Accident, it was so hush-hush he wasn't even named. I had to guess it was him from an oblique hint.
Why all the secrecy?
Because Panahi, a hero of world cinema, has been persecuted by the Iranian government, serving time in prison and under house arrest for daring to shoot his "social" films, as he calls them. Banned at home, they often feature non-professional actors and detail the intricate complexities of life in the theocratic republic.
It's only very recently that Panahi has been allowed to leave the country, including to pick up the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival, the Palme d'Or, for It Was Just an Accident in May.
It was a tenuous détente, no doubt reached because of the high esteem in which Panahi is held globally. This is why Sydney Film Festival didn't want to risk endangering Panahi by announcing the visit.
Instead, he appeared onstage at the State Theatre during the opening night speeches to thunderous applause. Two days later, we sit down together with a translator over coffee at the Park Royal Darling Harbour, to discuss why his thought-provoking films are worth risking his freedom. Panahi is wearing his trademark black, including shades, indoors.
"When you are in pain over something and it is tickling at you, you say, 'I must make a movie,'" Panahi says of his inescapable commitment to many causes.
"Everything is happening from a simple accident, and then you have a duty of care. You are not separated from your movie."
Simple accidents they may be, but Panahi takes these intense moments of personal experience and spins them into intriguing morality plays that rattle the bars holding Iranian citizens back.
"The changes I feature are borne out of society," says the filmmaker, who was mentored by Iranian New Wave leading light Abbas Kiarostami.
He has long followed the evolution of women's rights in Iran. His third feature, The Circle (2000), addresses access to abortions and sex work. Six years later, his joyous Offside is centred on plucky young women who flout the ban on attending a World Cup qualifying match.
The hijab-law-rejecting protests sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini broke out during Panahi's second, and most recent, stint in prison — this time alongside several fellow political prisoners.
It was 2022, with Panahi's self-starring feature, No Bears, debuting at the Venice Film Festival in his absence.
"Bits and pieces of the news would come to us, but we really didn't know what the people on the street were experiencing," Panahi says.
A strange turn of events would allow him a closer look, when an insect bite sparked a persistent skin problem. "The doctor in jail couldn't really help," Panahi recalls. "I needed to see a specialist. I had to request this for two or three months."
Eventually, he was placed in handcuffs and bundled in the back of a van with darkened windows to attend the specialist.
"They didn't want me to see anything, but I could, through the front windshield," he notes of his stolen glimpse at the protests. "I could see that the city has already changed."
Now, Panahi says he cannot make another film in which all of the women on the street are wearing a hijab.
"I would be telling a lie," he says. "What am I supposed to do when the politicians are running behind for 20 years?"
Panahi is heartened that audiences worldwide have embraced his portraits of a nation in flux, including the complete celebration of his work at the Sydney Film Festival leading up to the local debut of It Was Just an Accident. It screens alongside all of his previous features in Jafar Panahi: Cinema in Rebellion.
The new feature is drawn from Panahi's experience of interrogation, after being held in solitary confinement during his first stretch inside. It poses the question: what would you do if you were confronted with the man you think was your interrogator? Would you demand answers? Show mercy? Or opt for revenge?
He says the best part of being free again and able to travel, however risky, is sitting with audiences as they experience the film.
"The Iranian government put a distance between us and the viewers," Panahi says.
"They didn't allow us to make that connection. But now I can sit with them and see which part of the movie works and which is not OK."
After all he has been through, you'd forgive Panahi if he walked away from his home country. But — as with a beautiful moment in No Bears where he, playing a version of himself, stands on the border with Turkey — he has no intention of doing so.
"I didn't put my foot on the other side of the border," he says. "I came back. I do not want to exchange my life for anything else. Life in Iran is not difficult for me. Life outside is. I cannot live anywhere else."
Editing It Was Just an Accident in France for three months was too long away for Panahi.
"Every day I said, 'I cannot survive here. I cannot continue in here. I must go home.'"
It Was Just an Accident marks its Australian debut at the Sydney Film Festival on Friday, May 13, alongside a retrospective of Panahi's films.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
ABC News
4 hours ago
- ABC News
Margret RoadKnight—60 years in the business
Singer and guitarist Margret RoadKnight doesn't write her own songs but she's had a six decade career interpreting other people's. She has a voice able to sit across a range of musical styles—from blues to gospel, folk to jazz. This career spanning conversation was originally recorded in 2019, and we're running it again to celebrate four of Margret's albums from the 1980s and 90s being made available on Bandcamp for the first time (via Chapter Music). Music in this program: Title: Living Legend (live) Artist: Margret RoadKnight Composer: Shel Silverstein, Bob Gibson Recorded live at Port Fairy Folk Festival, 2006 Title: Girls in our Town Artist: Margret RoadKnight Composer: Bob Hudson Album: Margret RoadKnight Decade: '75-'85 Label: Festival Records Title: Cinderella Acappella Artist: Margret RoadKnight, Jeannie Lewis, Moya Simpson, Blair Greenberg Composer: John Shortis Album: Cinderella Acappella Label: Rascal Records Title: A Bunch of Damned Whores Artist: Margret RoadKnight, Moya Simpson, Jarnie Birmingham, Mara Kiek, Judy Bailey piano Composer: Ted Egan Album: Fringe Benefits Label: Honky Tonk Angels/Chapter Music (reissue) Title: Wasn't That A Mighty Day Artist: Marion Williams & The Stars Of Faith, Princess Stewart, Prof. Alex Bradford & The Bradford Singers Composer: Traditional, arranged Alex Bradford Album: Black Nativity, Gospel On Broadway! Label: Festival Records Title: Sweet Solitary Blues Artist: Margret RoadKnight Composer: Robyn Archer Album: Moving Target >>>>> harder to hit Label: Honky Tonk Angels/Chapter Music (reissue) Title: If You Love Me Artist: Margret RoadKnight Composer: Malvina Reynolds Album: An Audience With Margret RoadKnight Label: Chapter Music (reissue) Title: McMasters Ward Artist: Roger Knox Composer: Roger Knox, Toby Martin Album: Buluunarbi and The Old North Star Label: Flippin Yeah
News.com.au
5 hours ago
- News.com.au
Wild scenes as thousands strip off for icy nude swim at end of Dark Mofo
At sunrise on the shortest day of the year, thousands of naked bodies surged into Hobart's icy River Derwent, baring all to farewell one of Australia's most daring festivals. The annual Nude Solstice Swim marked the end of Dark Mofo 2025, with 3,000 people shedding their clothes for the final 'cleansing' ritual. When the swim was first proposed in 2013, police threatened to arrest participants, sparking controversy around the provocative event. Since then, it has become an officially sanctioned and wildly popular highlight of the festival, selling out every year as thousands embrace the daring winter tradition. Wrapped in towels and donning matching red swim caps, swimmers gathered in the dark before sprinting into the water to the sound of drums as the first rays of daylight hit the horizon on Saturday morning. With the mercury dropping to 10 degrees at 7.42am, many only dipped in briefly, but dozens lingered on the pontoon taking in the sunrise over the hill. After a cancelled 2024 festival, Dark Mofo Artistic Director Chris Twite said organisers had worked hard to rebuild the provocative event. 'This morning, after two years of hard work, it was tremendous to see 3,000 courageous souls gathered once more on the shore of the Derwent to brave the freezing waters for the Nude Solstice Swim to cleanse us and bring this year's Dark Mofo to a close,' he said. 'The response in 2025 has been incredible. The streets of Hobart have come alive with locals and visitors celebrating winter and Dark Mofo again.' The 2025 program was the first full-scale edition of the festival since the pandemic and drew massive crowds, with more than 480,000 entries and $4.6 million generated at the box office. Dark Mofo's Executive Director Melissa Edwards praised the overwhelming support behind the festival's return. 'We could not be more thankful for the ways that everyone has come together to return Dark Mofo to Tasmania this year,' she said.
News.com.au
5 hours ago
- News.com.au
The Project co-host Waleed Aly: ‘I thought about Peter Dutton'
In the wake of Waleed Aly's emotional departure from The Project, he has opened up on how he feels about the show's cancellation, working with Carrie Bickmore and Peter Helliar — and what comes next. 'The word jungle has been mentioned,' Aly told Stellar. 'Obviously I can't tell the future, but I have no intention of doing that. There are lots of other things I'll have to think about as well. 'That's actually been the strangest thing. Even in my private life, people are kind of like, 'Hey, do you want to do this?' And I'm like, 'I don't know. I actually have no idea…' Because I don't know if I'm available in July next year.' Aly, who has co-hosted the news program for a decade alongside the likes of Bickmore, Helliar, Tommy Little and Lisa Wilkinson, also spoke about the moment he learnt The Project would wrap its nearly 16-year run on Network 10 from Friday June 27. 'I only knew, for less than a week before it was public. So it was all fairly sudden,' he said. 'The hardest day was definitely the day it was announced, because that's when you are in the room with all your colleagues. 'People that you've worked with, in some cases, for more than a decade. People at really difficult stages in their lives. They've just bought a home, or they're just about to have a baby or whatever. 'This is not a unique experience to us. This is something that happens across lots of industries and in lots of workplaces, and it's sad every time.' Looking back on his time on the show, Aly told Stellar it was 'a gift' to work with Bickmore and Helliar particularly, who were at the desk with him from 2015 through 2022. During their co-hosting years together, Aly and Bickmore each won a Gold Logie and Helliar was nominated, and many have argued the show was at its apex during that time. Aly's take? 'I will leave it to others to judge when the golden age was.' As for critics of the show who have delighted in its demise and long speculated the show was on its last legs, Aly has taken their glee at its axing in his stride, saying that sort of reaction 'happens in a lot of places' and cites the political world. 'I get that because those things are a contest,' he told Stellar. 'I remember thinking about when Peter Dutton lost his seat, and how that would be so hard, because not only does he lose his job, but he loses it in a really public way and in a way that is partisan, so that there'll be a whole lot of people that are delighted about it or whatever.'
