Latest news with #Vahid
Hans India
5 days ago
- Sport
- Hans India
Kickboxing competitions held
Hyderabad: The national-level live kickboxing competitions held at LuLu Mall in the city concluded successfully. Organised by the UIC, the three-day event started on Friday and ended on Sunday. The first day featured a Face-Off event, while the second day showcased exciting kickboxing matches. A total of 16 fighters participated in 8 matches, including two female competitors. In the Welter Weight category, Vahid emerged as the champion. The final day highlighted Muay Thai competitions. Speaking at the event, Abdul Khadeer Shaik, Regional Director of LuLu Group, stated that these competitions were organised to promote sports in Hyderabad. He mentioned that such events would help increase public interest in sports. As expected, the competitions received a tremendous response from visitors. Mohammad Sharif, Regional Manager, and Ezhil Arasan, Mall Manager, thanked everyone for making the event a grand success. They also noted that it was the first time such competitions were held inside a mall in the city. On the first day, Bandi Ramesh, Vice President of TPCC and Congress Kukatpally In-Charge, attended the event. He expressed pride that Kukatpally hosted such competitions and appreciated the efforts of LuLu Mall management. He expressed hope that many more such events would be organised in the future.
The Age
06-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
From prison to the Palme d'Or: Jafar Panahi's defiant message to the world
When Jafar Panahi attended the Cannes Film Festival with his latest film, It Was Just an Accident, it was the first time the renowned director had been allowed to leave Iran in 15 years. Even after years of prosecutions, house arrest and two spells in prison, he said the most exciting thing about this sudden rush of liberty was being able to see one of his films, which are all banned in his home country, in a cinema. 'Watching the film with other people and telling myself, 'Oh wow, you were able to watch one of your films with other people!' And, of course, seeing the audience finding a rapport.' An intense rapport, as it turned out: on the closing night of the festival, Panahi was presented with the top prize, the Palme d'Or, by specially invited Cate Blanchett. Introducing the award, jury president Juliette Binoche said cinema and art are 'provocative' and mobilise 'a force that transforms darkness into forgiveness, hope and new life', which was why the jury had chosen Panahi's film. Predictably, Panahi's persecutors back in Iran didn't see it quite that way; the state television station condemned It Was Just An Accident as 'lies and smearing', while the victory caused a small but fiery diplomatic spat between Iran and France. 'I am not an art expert,' sneered foreign ministry representative Esmaeil Baqaei, 'but we believe that artistic events and art in general should not be exploited to pursue political objectives'. Like all the films Panahi has made in his years as persona non grata, It Was Just an Accident was shot and edited in secret, without the required official permits. 'I had to work in total secrecy, with only my very close crew being aware of the subject of the film and of the content of the script.' There was no point, he says, in applying for clearance to make what is perhaps his angriest film yet – and his strangest, in that it is a comedy caper about torturers and the tortured. It follows a garage mechanic, Vahid (Vahid Mobasser), who hears in the garage the uneven footsteps of his former torturer, whom he never saw through his blindfold but whom he knew had an artificial leg. He could never forget the sound of that dragging foot. Vahid becomes judge and jury. What punishment could fit this man's crimes? If, indeed, it was this man. Having kidnapped him, intending to bury him alive in the desert, Vahid starts to have doubts. Bundling his catch into his van, he goes to consult his friend and mentor, a scholarly bookshop owner, who asks him with some asperity whether he is really up for burying someone alive. But he doesn't want to decide anything; for that, he should ask the photographer who was raped by this man, who turns out to be doing a wedding shoot that day with a couple of other torture victims. Did any of them see their interrogator? No. Bride, groom and photographer join his posse, with a firm ID still no closer. It Was Just an Accident walks a knife-edge between horror and humour, which Panahi says is a very Iranian approach to the world. 'Iranians really are that way. You will be having a very serious argument about something very difficult and 10 minutes later you're having a joke about it,' he says. 'No political entity has ever been able to rid us of it and, of course, when it is included in a film, it makes the film more real.' The Islamic Republic has tried to stamp out festivals and fun of all kinds, without ever managing it. 'Just like, despite imposing the mandatory headscarf time and again, they haven't been able to stop our very progressive, courageous women.' Nothing has stopped Panahi, either. Back in 2010, he was sentenced to six years in jail for supporting anti-government protesters and creating 'propaganda against the system'. He served only two months, but he was banned from travelling outside Iran and from making films. His response was to make This Is Not a Film, a polemic on the nature of film-making shot entirely in his home on his iPhone, which made it to international festivals on a USB stick baked into a cake. Tehran Taxi (2015) was shot surreptitiously inside a moving car. It went on, in Panahi's very conspicuous absence, to win the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. In 2022, he was arrested again when he asked awkward questions about the fate of two other imprisoned filmmakers and, as a consequence, was ordered to serve the rest of his 2010 sentence. He was in prison for seven months, undergoing repeated interrogation sessions, but was released in February 2023, his sentence considered served and the previous travel and work bans lifted. He then set about turning his experience – and the stories he heard from his fellow prisoners, some of whom had been incarcerated for 15 years – into It Was Just an Accident. Other Iranian filmmakers have seized opportunities such as Cannes to get out of the country for good. Panahi, however, immediately made it clear that he would never leave Iran and was heading back as soon as the festival was over. 'I have no ability to adapt to a new country, a new culture,' he said. 'Many of those outside Iran did not leave of their own volition; they are in an imposed exile. I don't see myself as capable of living outside Iran or courageous enough to do so.' The day after he collected his Palme, Instagram showed his return to Tehran, where a small crowd of well-wishers – including many bare-headed women – were waiting at the airport with a garland of flowers ready to put over his shoulders. He was home. Somewhat disingenuously, Panahi insists on defining his films as 'social' rather than political. To call them political is a misnomer that is itself politically motivated, he says. 'I think a political film has a very clear attachment to a party, a very specific stance and pursues a specific political agenda, but you will never see an entirely positive or entirely negative character in any of my films,' he says. 'The real problem is the superstructure, the government that turns people into something they are not. What I do in my films is show people the way they are and highlight the circumstances that might have led them to be the way they are.' This is, for example, the first of his films to show women with their hair uncovered, which he says reflects the fact that when he was released from prison, what struck him was the number of women in public without headscarves. The characters in the film reflect different stances – one who speaks in slogans, another who is more conciliatory – reflecting the real-life characters he met in prison. 'I even allowed an interrogator to speak for himself, and explain his ideology, his aims.' The Iranian authorities, needless to say, take a different view. Panahi started his film-making career making television and as an assistant director to Abbas Kiarostami. His first film as a director, The White Balloon, was a gentle story of slum children that won the Camera d'Or in Cannes in 1995. The Iranian film authority duly nominated The White Balloon as the country's Oscar entry, then decided it was critical of the regime and banned Panahi from travelling to the United States or speaking to the press. By the time he came to make The Circle, a round of interlocking stories about Iranian women that won the Golden Lion in Venice in 2000, he was officially on the outer. The Circle, along with all his subsequent films, was banned in Iran. Loading The experience of interrogation, remembered by various characters in It Was Just an Accident, echoes his own. During his months of imprisonment, he was questioned for hours every day as to why he would make the films he does. He imitates their tirades. ''You're selling out! You're giving your country a bad reputation! You are a traitor!'' A lot of discussion, he says with irony. Like the people in his film, he is haunted by that disembodied voice. 'When the interrogator has sat you very close to the wall, blindfolded you in such a way that you can only see enough from the corner of your eye to write on a piece of paper and is standing behind you, you do wonder: who is this? What does he look like, how old is he, what does he believe?' Loading In theory, Panahi's suspended sentence is now officially served, and he should be free to apply for permission to make films legitimately. 'I think I just did what my sentence required, which was that I was banned from film-making for 20 years,' he says. 'I did 16 years of it; I think they could not renew this sentence as it came to an end.' But that doesn't mean he has been given more latitude. He will continue to film in secret; as he said in an interview with Variety during the festival, the authorities make up laws as they go. Will he be arrested again? Or confined to home? Nothing is certain, except that Jafar Panahi will continue, one way or another, to make films.
Sydney Morning Herald
06-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
From prison to the Palme d'Or: Jafar Panahi's defiant message to the world
When Jafar Panahi attended the Cannes Film Festival with his latest film, It Was Just an Accident, it was the first time the renowned director had been allowed to leave Iran in 15 years. Even after years of prosecutions, house arrest and two spells in prison, he said the most exciting thing about this sudden rush of liberty was being able to see one of his films, which are all banned in his home country, in a cinema. 'Watching the film with other people and telling myself, 'Oh wow, you were able to watch one of your films with other people!' And, of course, seeing the audience finding a rapport.' An intense rapport, as it turned out: on the closing night of the festival, Panahi was presented with the top prize, the Palme d'Or, by specially invited Cate Blanchett. Introducing the award, jury president Juliette Binoche said cinema and art are 'provocative' and mobilise 'a force that transforms darkness into forgiveness, hope and new life', which was why the jury had chosen Panahi's film. Predictably, Panahi's persecutors back in Iran didn't see it quite that way; the state television station condemned It Was Just An Accident as 'lies and smearing', while the victory caused a small but fiery diplomatic spat between Iran and France. 'I am not an art expert,' sneered foreign ministry representative Esmaeil Baqaei, 'but we believe that artistic events and art in general should not be exploited to pursue political objectives'. Like all the films Panahi has made in his years as persona non grata, It Was Just an Accident was shot and edited in secret, without the required official permits. 'I had to work in total secrecy, with only my very close crew being aware of the subject of the film and of the content of the script.' There was no point, he says, in applying for clearance to make what is perhaps his angriest film yet – and his strangest, in that it is a comedy caper about torturers and the tortured. It follows a garage mechanic, Vahid (Vahid Mobasser), who hears in the garage the uneven footsteps of his former torturer, whom he never saw through his blindfold but whom he knew had an artificial leg. He could never forget the sound of that dragging foot. Vahid becomes judge and jury. What punishment could fit this man's crimes? If, indeed, it was this man. Having kidnapped him, intending to bury him alive in the desert, Vahid starts to have doubts. Bundling his catch into his van, he goes to consult his friend and mentor, a scholarly bookshop owner, who asks him with some asperity whether he is really up for burying someone alive. But he doesn't want to decide anything; for that, he should ask the photographer who was raped by this man, who turns out to be doing a wedding shoot that day with a couple of other torture victims. Did any of them see their interrogator? No. Bride, groom and photographer join his posse, with a firm ID still no closer. It Was Just an Accident walks a knife-edge between horror and humour, which Panahi says is a very Iranian approach to the world. 'Iranians really are that way. You will be having a very serious argument about something very difficult and 10 minutes later you're having a joke about it,' he says. 'No political entity has ever been able to rid us of it and, of course, when it is included in a film, it makes the film more real.' The Islamic Republic has tried to stamp out festivals and fun of all kinds, without ever managing it. 'Just like, despite imposing the mandatory headscarf time and again, they haven't been able to stop our very progressive, courageous women.' Nothing has stopped Panahi, either. Back in 2010, he was sentenced to six years in jail for supporting anti-government protesters and creating 'propaganda against the system'. He served only two months, but he was banned from travelling outside Iran and from making films. His response was to make This Is Not a Film, a polemic on the nature of film-making shot entirely in his home on his iPhone, which made it to international festivals on a USB stick baked into a cake. Tehran Taxi (2015) was shot surreptitiously inside a moving car. It went on, in Panahi's very conspicuous absence, to win the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. In 2022, he was arrested again when he asked awkward questions about the fate of two other imprisoned filmmakers and, as a consequence, was ordered to serve the rest of his 2010 sentence. He was in prison for seven months, undergoing repeated interrogation sessions, but was released in February 2023, his sentence considered served and the previous travel and work bans lifted. He then set about turning his experience – and the stories he heard from his fellow prisoners, some of whom had been incarcerated for 15 years – into It Was Just an Accident. Other Iranian filmmakers have seized opportunities such as Cannes to get out of the country for good. Panahi, however, immediately made it clear that he would never leave Iran and was heading back as soon as the festival was over. 'I have no ability to adapt to a new country, a new culture,' he said. 'Many of those outside Iran did not leave of their own volition; they are in an imposed exile. I don't see myself as capable of living outside Iran or courageous enough to do so.' The day after he collected his Palme, Instagram showed his return to Tehran, where a small crowd of well-wishers – including many bare-headed women – were waiting at the airport with a garland of flowers ready to put over his shoulders. He was home. Somewhat disingenuously, Panahi insists on defining his films as 'social' rather than political. To call them political is a misnomer that is itself politically motivated, he says. 'I think a political film has a very clear attachment to a party, a very specific stance and pursues a specific political agenda, but you will never see an entirely positive or entirely negative character in any of my films,' he says. 'The real problem is the superstructure, the government that turns people into something they are not. What I do in my films is show people the way they are and highlight the circumstances that might have led them to be the way they are.' This is, for example, the first of his films to show women with their hair uncovered, which he says reflects the fact that when he was released from prison, what struck him was the number of women in public without headscarves. The characters in the film reflect different stances – one who speaks in slogans, another who is more conciliatory – reflecting the real-life characters he met in prison. 'I even allowed an interrogator to speak for himself, and explain his ideology, his aims.' The Iranian authorities, needless to say, take a different view. Panahi started his film-making career making television and as an assistant director to Abbas Kiarostami. His first film as a director, The White Balloon, was a gentle story of slum children that won the Camera d'Or in Cannes in 1995. The Iranian film authority duly nominated The White Balloon as the country's Oscar entry, then decided it was critical of the regime and banned Panahi from travelling to the United States or speaking to the press. By the time he came to make The Circle, a round of interlocking stories about Iranian women that won the Golden Lion in Venice in 2000, he was officially on the outer. The Circle, along with all his subsequent films, was banned in Iran. Loading The experience of interrogation, remembered by various characters in It Was Just an Accident, echoes his own. During his months of imprisonment, he was questioned for hours every day as to why he would make the films he does. He imitates their tirades. ''You're selling out! You're giving your country a bad reputation! You are a traitor!'' A lot of discussion, he says with irony. Like the people in his film, he is haunted by that disembodied voice. 'When the interrogator has sat you very close to the wall, blindfolded you in such a way that you can only see enough from the corner of your eye to write on a piece of paper and is standing behind you, you do wonder: who is this? What does he look like, how old is he, what does he believe?' Loading In theory, Panahi's suspended sentence is now officially served, and he should be free to apply for permission to make films legitimately. 'I think I just did what my sentence required, which was that I was banned from film-making for 20 years,' he says. 'I did 16 years of it; I think they could not renew this sentence as it came to an end.' But that doesn't mean he has been given more latitude. He will continue to film in secret; as he said in an interview with Variety during the festival, the authorities make up laws as they go. Will he be arrested again? Or confined to home? Nothing is certain, except that Jafar Panahi will continue, one way or another, to make films.
Deccan Herald
06-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Deccan Herald
'It Was Just an Accident' Cannes review: Jafar Panahi's latest is a suspenseful political drama
Jafar Panahi's 'It Was Just an Accident' emerged as the most politically urgent and emotionally devastating entry, earning the veteran Iranian filmmaker the prestigious Palme d'Or award at the Cannes Film Festival this year. Yet, the film's resonance goes far beyond awards. It is both a powerful work of cinematic art and a defiant act of resistance — crafted in secrecy, brimming with moral complexity, and deeply rooted in the personal and political trauma of Iran's recent film opens with a mundane incident that quickly spirals into a moral crucible. A family — husband Eghbal (Ebrahim Azizi), his pregnant wife, and their daughter — accidentally hit a dog on a dark road. Their car breaks down, and they take refuge at a garage where the attendant, Vahid (Vahid Mobasseri), hears the creak of Eghbal's prosthetic leg. The sound triggers Vahid's memory of being tortured in prison; he is convinced this man is "Peg-leg," the interrogator who brutalised him and others under the Iranian regime. Driven by a thirst for vengeance, Vahid abducts Eghbal and prepares to bury him alive. But doubt soon emerges — is this truly the man who tormented him? .What follows is a suspenseful, often darkly comic odyssey that unfolds over the course of a single day. Vahid assembles a group of fellow victims — Shiva, a photographer; Goli and Ali, a couple interrupted mid-wedding shoot; and Hamid, a volatile former detainee — to verify Eghbal's identity. Each character brings their trauma and perspective, and their debates — whether driven by rage, resignation, or uncertainty — form the moral backbone of the brilliance of Panahi's script lies in its refusal to offer clarity. We, like the characters, are blindfolded — uncertain of the truth, forced to wrestle with our assumptions and sympathies. Is Eghbal the perpetrator? And if he is, does vengeance restore justice — or simply perpetuate the cycle of violence? .Thematically, 'It Was Just an Accident' echoes Panahi's own life. Since 2010, he has faced imprisonment, house arrest, and a ban on filmmaking imposed by the Iranian government. Yet, he has continued to make films in secret, turning limitations into artistic innovation. The film is imbued with the urgency and emotional charge of someone who has suffered but remains defiant. .While rooted in Iran's political reality, the film transcends its immediate context. Panahi's film confronts the impossibility of closure for survivors of state violence. The blindfold motif — used both literally and symbolically — underscores how justice is often obscured, reliant on memory, interpretation, and 'It Was Just an Accident' is not merely a grim reckoning. Panahi interweaves moments of absurdity and dark humour: a bride in full gown pushing a van, debates over bribe payments made via contactless card readers, and exasperated arguments about the cost of vengeance. These comic detours do not undercut the film's gravity; instead, they humanise the characters and reveal the surreal logic of life under authoritarian rule. The long extended standing ovation Panahi received at the festival after the film's stunning conclusion, was considered by many as less like applause and more like solidarity. The jury's decision to award him the Palme d'Or was not only an artistic endorsement but also a symbolic act — recognising the risks he took, the message he delivered, and the bravery of creating such a film under oppressive conditions. .The final scenes, marked by a long static take and a crescendo of emotional unraveling, are unforgettable, but could have been avoided in terms of aesthetic principles of keeping open the dilemmas of human situation. Though they encapsulate the fragility of truth, the brutality of memory, and the ambiguity of justice, confirming the identity of the perpetrator and his rather lame confessions could appear prosaic. But that doesn't lessen the final impact of the film. Rather than offering resolution, Panahi leaves us with questions —about ourselves, about systems of power, and about how pain lingers across is a film of political resistance, moral inquiry, and cinematic excellence. It reminds us that cinema, even when made in defiance of tyranny, can illuminate, challenge, and change the world — or at the very least, its viewers.
Nahar Net
27-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Nahar Net
Iran summons French diplomat over praise of Palme d'Or-winning film
by Naharnet Newsdesk 27 May 2025, 15:13 Iran has summoned France's representative in protest after the French foreign minister praised a prize-winning Iranian film as "a gesture of resistance against the Iranian regime's oppression." Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot had praised "It Was Just an Accident" after it won the prestigious Palme d'Or award at the Cannes Film Festival. The Iranian film centers on a man who abducts his suspected captor after being tortured in prison. Iran's Foreign Ministry said the French charge d'affaires was summoned over the minister's "interventionist, irresponsible and instigative allegations," the state-run IRNA news agency reported. "Spare us Iranians the lectures. You have no moral authority whatsoever," Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on "X," citing France's approach to Israel's ongoing war in Gaza. France last week threatened "concrete action" against Israel if the country didn't halt the offensive in Gaza and lift restrictions on humanitarian aid, but the statement was mostly dismissed as empty threats. Immediately following the award's announcement, the Iranian state news agency had announced a more muted celebration of the award, crediting the country's film industry for winning a second Palme d'Or after Abbas Kiarostami's 1997 drama, "Taste of Cherry." In Iran, film productions need to receive script approval from the government to shoot in public. Dissident filmmaker Jafar Panahi refuses to do that, knowing they won't allow him to make the films he wants to, and "It Was Just an Accident" was filmed without cooperation. Iranian state TV called the film a mixture of "lie and smearing" as well as an "underground" film produced without required permits in Iran. State TV also chastised Panahi for not mentioning the plight of the Palestinians in his acceptance speech. The film follows a man named Vahid, played by Vahid Mobasser, who believes he sees his former captor, who tortured him in prison and ruined his life. He abducts him, takes him to the desert and begins to bury him in the ground. But to satisfy pangs of doubt, Vahid decides to confirm his suspicion by bringing the man, locked in his van, to other former prisoners for identification. In a strange and emotional journey, they are all forced to grapple with revenge and forgiveness. Panahi drew on the experiences from his own imprisonment as well as the stories of detainees around him. Other state media were more critical of the win. The Mizan news agency, an arm of the country's judiciary, reported on the win as part of the "Political Cannes Film Festival," suggesting that the prize was given to Panahi because of his political leanings. Pro-reform media outlets and activists praised Panahi. "This victory is no accident — it is the result of a tireless dedication to exploring humanistic values and human rights," said Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi, who was also previously imprisoned at Tehran's notorious Evin Prison. Inmates at the prison include those with Western ties and political prisoners. Panahi, one of the leading international directors, was banned from traveling out of Iran in 2009 for attending the funeral of a student killed in anti-government protests, a judgment later extended to two decades. But even when placed under house arrest, Panahi kept making movies, many of which are among the most lauded of the century. He made 2011's "This Is Not a Film" on an iPhone in his living room. "Taxi" (2015) was clandestinely shot almost entirely within a car. Panahi was arrested in 2022 when he went to the Tehran prosecutor's office to inquire about the arrests of two other Iranian filmmakers. A judge later ruled that he must serve six years for an earlier sentence on charges of propagandizing against the government from 2011 that had never been enforced. In early 2023, Panahi went on a hunger strike and was released from Evin Prison. Panahi said he would not seek asylum in another country, despite the risks of additional imprisonment. "It's simple. I'm unable to live here," he said last week from the Cannes festival. "I have no ability to adapt to a new country, a new culture. Some people have this ability, this strength. I don't." On Monday, Panahi landed in Tehran to cheers and applause from fans.
