Jafar Panahi Is the Director of Our Censorial Moment

Jafar Panahi’s Revenge Road Trip Masterpiece

“I’m not that brave,” the Iranian director Jafar Panahi told Film Comment in an interview earlier this year. “I’m just doing my job. I’m making my films…. I feel a bit embarrassed when this is seen as courage.”Such humility is becoming in any filmmaker, especially one clutching a Palme d’Or. The citation, bestowed at Cannes upon Panahi’s new film, It Was Just an Accident, gave the 65-year-old director a lifetime sweep of the world’s top film fes…

Jafar Panahi Is the Director of Our Censorial Moment

Since his 2010 imprisonment, the director has been in an endless game of chicken with the Iranian regime. In his defiant new film, ‘It Was Just an Accident,’ a group of Iranians consider killing the man who tortured them in prison.

‘It Was Just an Accident’ Review: Five Iranian Dissidents Debate Killing Their Former Torturer in Jafar Panahi’s Breathless Moral Thriller

Freed from restrictions, Jafar Panahi returns with the nail-biting 'It Was Just an Accident,' inspired by his own experience in Iran's prisons.

Oscars: PTA, Zhao, Coogler, Trier and Panahi Emerge as Best Director Frontrunners — World of Reel

Here we are in mid-October, and most of this year’s major Oscar contenders have already either premiered at festivals or been released theatrically. Still looming on the horizon are two heavy hitters: James Cameron’s “Avatar: Fire and Ash” and John M. Chu’s “Wicked For Good.” And then there’s Josh Safdie’s “Marty Supreme,” which was surprise-screened to rapturous reactions at NYFF. The review embargo on the film is still in place, likely until D…

It Was Just an Accident Review — The Moral Weight of an Accidental Justice

It’s impossible to separate the cinema of Jafar Panahi, the acclaimed Iranian filmmaker, from a heavy and oppressive political context; It Was Just an Accident is no exception. As I prepared for its screening, my expectations were primarily shaped by the movie’s recent Palme d’Or win at Cannes. While I’m not one to elevate my anticipations based solely on festival prizes — which often tend to be driven by external biases — I knew that the jury’s…