Yek tasadof-e sadeh / It Was Just an Accident (American premiere, in person: Jafar Panahi)

Jafar Panahi: /یک تصادف ساده/ Yek tasadof-e sadeh / It Was Just an Accident. Hamid (Mohamed Ali Elyasmehr), Ali (Majid Panahi) and Golrokh, "Goli" (Hadis Pakbaten). 

/یک تصادف ساده/ Yek tasadof-e sadeh / Un simple accident.

Peter Sellars (TFF 2025): "In the future, when we choose to have just and humane societies, what will we do with the individuals who inflicted cruel and pointless suffering upon thousands of innocent and brave people? As always, Jafar Panahi creates an alchemical mix of the startling details from real people’s private lives and a storyline that has the purity and searing clarity of a Sufi teaching tale. Nearly all the participants are former prisoners risking their lives to add their voices to a brutal chapter of history. Perhaps it is their supreme acts of kindness, as actors and as citizens, that are mso unexpectedly overwhelming. The last 20 minutes erupt into an epic ritual, a trial scene at the edge of cosmic time that will blaze its burning truths as long as there are humans on earth. This is why cinema had to be invented." –PS (Iran/France/Luxembourg, 2025, 103m) In person: Jafar Panahi

AA: Jafar Panahi's new film It Was Just an Accident has been created with minimalist means and resources, but working from a brilliant script and with a great cast, the result is an excellent political thriller with great reverberations about the condition of Iran - and terrifyingly, the destiny of what was known until recently the Free World.

The format is that of a road movie, a quest, and a detective story. We start with an ordinary family and everyday road incidents, driving at night. Only in retrospect, certain details turn ominous, for instance the little daughter's remarks of "why we have no neighbours" and "why we meet nobody".

When there is engine trouble in the car, Vahid (Vahid Mobasseri) is alerted to help, but suddenly he believes he recognizes the signature step of the "Peg Leg", Eghbal, the brutal torturer of the regime. He and his friends have suffered months of sadistic abuse in the dungeons of the government. But because their eyes were tied, they cannot be absolutely sure. Vahid first meets his trusted friend, the bookseller Salar who refers Vahid to the photographer Shiva. Salar warns Vahid against revenge.

Only in the finale it is confirmed that the ordinary family father (Ebrahim Azizi) in the opening sequence is indeed Eghbal. Meanwhile, a whole entourage has gathered in Vahid's van: the wedding photographer Shiva (Mariam Afshari), the bride Golrokh, "Goli" (Hadis Pakbaten) and the groom Ali (Majid Panahi), both in full wedding attire, and Shiva's ex Hamid (Mohamed Ali Elyasmehr). All raging with revenge.

The film is so charged with hate and revenge that even the moments at the bookstore and the maternity ward and the wonderful presence of the little daughter cannot change the balance. Nor the ubiquitous sense of humour.

A film ingenious in its minimalism. Key dialogue includes: "Do you always act before you think?" When they are about to interrogate Eghbal: "Using their methods?" "Will it never stop?"

I was depressed at the death of spirit. The spiritual breakdown. The lack of transcendence. Vahid's physical health has been permanently damaged by the torture of Eghbal. Everybody's mental health has also been destroyed.

It Was Just an Accident is bitter medicine.