Iranian dissident filmmaker and 2025 Cannes Palme d’Or
winner Jafar Panahi (It Was Just an Accident) was unable to attend
the BFI London Film Festival in person for his scheduled Screen Talk
on Friday.
“Due to a scheduling conflict, the in-person Jafar Panahi
Screen Talk has been canceled,” the festival announced in a statement Friday
afternoon. “The conversation will instead be recorded and released online for
free first exclusively on BFI Player, followed by a later debut on BFI
YouTube.” A release date for the recording has not yet been confirmed.
Panahi had planned to travel from New York to London
for the event. His U.S. festival appearances were previously delayed due to
visa issues stemming from the government shutdown, though he did manage to
attend Beyond Fest earlier in the week and participate in a New York
Film Festival conversation with Martin Scorsese.
France has selected Panahi’s It Was Just an Accident as
its official submission for the 2026 Oscars’ best international feature
category. It’s the second consecutive year a European nation has put forward a
film by an Iranian dissident director following Germany’s selection of Mohammad
Rasoulof’s The Seed of the Sacred Fig, which went on to receive an
Oscar nomination.
It Was Just an Accident marks Panahi’s first feature
since his release from an Iranian prison and draws partial inspiration from his
second incarceration. Neon, which also distributed his The Year of
the Everlasting Storm, acquired North American rights to the film in
May.
Panahi’s long-standing travel restrictions date back to 2009, when he attended the funeral of a student killed during Iran’s Green Movement protests. The following year, the government sentenced him to a six-year suspended prison term and imposed a 20-year ban on filmmaking and international travel for alleged “propaganda against the system.”
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