‘You killed me a hundred times. Have you forgotten?‘
Iranian cinema faces challenges beyond the language barrier in terms of finding an international audience. Iranian New Wave, a loose term that describes Iranian cinema from the mid 1960s to the present day, faces constant challenges from censorship, with perceived offenders risking long prison sentences. Writer-director Jafar Panahi is one of Iran’s best-known filmmakers and he has faced various spells of incarceration and a 20-year ban on filmmaking activities in his home country. As a result of this, he has to produce his films with a small circle of trusted cast and crew without the permission of the Iranian authorities. In that context, it’s impressive that this film exists at all, never mind the fact that it’s great…
We begin with a man (Ebrahim Azizi) driving through the desert with his family, accidentally hitting and killing a dog. It was, indeed, just an accident. The man visits a nearby garage, where Vahid (Vahid Mobasseri), an ethnic Azerbaijani auto mechanic, recognises him as his former tormentor from a brutal Iranian prison. Vahid decides to bury the man alive before starting to doubt if this is the right man and so he enlists the help of some other former prisoners, notably wedding photographer Shiva (Mariam Afshari) and loose cannon, Hamid (Mohammad Ali Elyasmehr).
Aside from the performances, which are excellent throughout, particularly in the unforgettable third act, it is Panahi’s assured direction and clever screenplay that are the real stars here. The film constantly puts the characters in the middle of a moral quandary that makes the audience complicit, too. Does an eye for an eye make everyone blind? Or should people be punished for their sins? It’s a dilemma that the characters and the audience wrestle with and this often makes sitting through It Was Just an Accident an uncomfortable experience.
While it was nominated for Best International Feature at the 2026 Oscars (it lost out to Sentimental Value), Panahi’s incendiary film deserved better. This was undoubtedly one of the best films of 2025 – powerful and important filmmaking.
