Iranian director Jafar Panahi’s ‘It Was Just An Accident’ wins Palme d’Or at Cannes

Dissident Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi’s thriller It Was Just An Accident has won the Palme D’Or at the 78th Cannes Film Festival.

Panahi received a standing ovation as the annual French event drew to a close on Saturday after the jury, led by the French actress Juliette Binoche, announced he had won Cannes’ top prize for his movie — a strong critique of oppression in his home country.

Panahi has been repeatedly arrested and imprisoned in Iran for speaking out against the regime. His films have been banned in the country. The director was forbidden from leaving the country until 2023. And, though in 2010 he was subject to a 20-year filmmaking ban for “propagandizing against the government,” he continued to make films anyway.

It’s his first Cannes appearance in over two decades. He last appeared in person at Cannes in 2003, when his movie Crimson Gold was screened.

In a brief speech in Persian following the announcement of his win, the 64-year-old filmmaker said he was dedicating It Was Just An Accident to all the artists who have been involuntarily deported from Iran, and expressed the hope that they might return to make films in their home country in the future.

Other winners at this year’s festival include Nadia Melliti, the winner of the best actress prize for The Little Sister and Wagner Moura, who took best actor for his role in The Secret Agent. Kleber Mendonça Filho won the best director title for that same film.

The awards ceremony came just hours after a regional power outage threatened the festival’s final day. In a statement on social media on Saturday morning, RTE, which manages France’s electrical grid, said the temporary outage had affected 160,000 homes in the Cannes area. It disrupted the festival’s morning screenings and caused local businesses to shutter. French police are investigating a possible arson attack as the principle cause of the loss of power.