He’s been banned from making movies. Banned from giving interviews. Banned from traveling.
But, impelled by a commitment to independent thought and expression, Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi can’t help but defy such restraints by his autocratic government. He did this in the limelight last Friday, accepting in person the top honor at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival.
Mr. Panahi’s winning movie, “Un Simple Accident,” appears to be both humane and highly political. Its message and manner of production spotlight opposing facets of Iranian society: civilians’ unabated aspirations for freedom, for a system that embodies both justice and mercy; and the inhumane and repressive practices of a theocratic regime.
“I have become a filmmaker in spite of restrictions,” Mr. Panahi told The Guardian. He has been jailed twice, and the film draws on his prison experience. “The fear of being arrested is constant,” he admitted.
Yet he has not let this fear rule him, continuing to make movies in ingenious ways. He shot one at home with the curtains drawn, used his car as a mobile studio for another, and smuggled a third out of the country on a USB stick.
His cast, most of them amateurs, also displayed such determination. The winning film was shot in public locations without required permits. Female actors performed without the required head covering – the very act that led to the death of young Mahsa Amini and sparked mass protests in 2022.
So far, the government’s response to the Cannes award has been tempered. Perhaps it is wary of drawing further negative attention at this time. Its economy strained by oil embargoes and proxy wars, Iran is negotiating with the United States about its nuclear program and the potential easing of international sanctions. Some analysts say the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is edging out the firebrands from his government.
Mr. Panahi returned to Tehran without incident Monday. A group of fans greeted him at the airport and conversed briefly. In such exchanges, such “small things,” freedom is found, wrote Iranian-born British citizen Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who was imprisoned in Iran for six years. “Freedom is not an island; it is in connections and conversations, in everyday human things.”
