Iranian opposition filmmaker Jafar Panahi won a revenge thriller in Parmedollar at the Cannes Film Festival on Saturday.
Cate Blanchett gave Panahi the award. Panahi went on a hunger strike after being imprisoned in Iran three years ago. For a decade and a half he has kept films secret in his home country, including one film made in his living room (“This is not a movie”) and another film set in his car (“Tax”).
The crowd rose with fierce standing applause for the filmmakers. He quickly threw his arm and leaned into his seat before celebrating his collaborators and the audience around him. On stage, Panahie cheered from Juliet Binoche, a Cannes ju apprentice. Juliet Binoche praised the director at the festival in 2010 with Panahhi’s name, and was praised at the time under house arrest.
On the stage, Panahhi said that most importantly is his country’s freedom.
“Let’s join forces,” Panahhi said. “No one should tell us what clothes we should wear, what we should do, what we shouldn’t do. Film is society. No one has the right to tell us what we should and should do.”
“Let’s keep hopes,” he concluded.
The “It Was Just an Accident” victory extended one of the film’s most unprecedented winning streaks. Indie distributor Neon supported the final six palm doll winners. After its premiere at Cannes, the neon, which won “It Was Just an Accident” for distribution in North America, follows Palmus in “Parasites”, “Titan”, “The Triangle of Sorrow”, “Autumn Anatomy”, and “Anola”.
All of these films were Oscar nominees, with two “Parasites” and “Anola” winning the best picture.
Last year, filmmaker Mohammad Rassowoff fled Iran to attend the premiere of his film at Cannes and resettled in Germany. However, Panahhi says that life in exile is not for him. He was scheduled to return home to Tehran on Sunday.
“It was just an accident” was inspired by Panahi’s experience in prison. In it, a group of former prisoners encounters a man who terrifies them in prison and considers whether to kill him or not.
“This film comes from the resistance and the sense of survival that is absolutely necessary today,” Binoce told reporters after the ceremony. “Art always wins. Humans always win.”
The Cannes closing ceremony followed a massive blackout that hit southeastern France on Saturday, when police suspected it was arson. Power was restored at Cannes hours before the stars began to play the red carpet.
Other winners at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival
The Grand Prix, or second award, was awarded to Joachimtria’s Norwegian family drama “Sentimental Value.” While some people expected “sentimental values” to acquire “sentimental values,” the film still won a major award for Trier, who reunited him with actor Renate Reigns.
“We live in an age of incredible excess and image saturation. Moving images are always thrown at us,” Trier said. “And I would also like to pay tribute to the Cannes Film Festival to honor the foundations of moving images, free images, images that we take time to see, images that can be distinguished from one another with thought and empathy, and that are extremely important in this moment.”
Kleber Mendonça Filho’s Brazilian political thriller “The Secret Agent” won two major awards. He is the best director of Fillo and the best actor of Wagner Moola. While the ju umpire in Cannes is generally urged to spread the award, two of the “secret agents” showed strong feelings from the ju umpire. When asked about the two awards, Jue Jeremy Strong explained simply, “That was our wish.”
The victory, following Walter Sales’s “I’m Still Here” international film Oscar victory in March, allowed Brazil to celebrate more. In X, Brazilian President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva said the award “shows that our country’s films are second to none.”
The Juju Award was divided into two films. Óliver Laxe’s desert road trip “Sirât” and Mascha Schilinski’s German-language drama “Sound of Falling” is a generational drama. The best actress went to Nadia Melliti for “The Little Sister,” a French adult drama from Hafsia Herzi.
Belgian brothers Jean-Look and Pierre Dardennes are two-time Palme de Or’s winners, and won the best script for their latest drama, Young Mother. Cannes’ Best First Film Award was presented to Hasan Hadi for “President’s Cake,” making it the first Iraqi film to win an award at the festival.
This year, the shaping of Cannes
Saturday’s ceremony will close at the 78th Cannes Film Festival. There, geopolitics casts long shadows on both screen and off. Also, shortly before the French Riviera celebration, which is also the world’s largest film market, President Donald Trump brought the idea of 100% tariffs on films made overseas to the surface.
Most filmmakers responded with a shrug and called out the plan illogically. “Can you lift a movie at customs? It won’t ship that way,” said Wes Anderson, who premiered the latest “Phoenician Scheme” at the festival.
It was one of Cannes’ top American films, one of the top American films in America, along with Spike Lee’s “Up to 2,” Christopher McCarley Tom Cruise action, “Mission: Impossible – Final Calculations,” and Ali Astor’s “Eddington.”
