What’s intended as a small act of kindness instead sets a traumatized everyman on a twisting path of revenge in this morally complex, psychologically astute thriller from the legendary Jafar Panahi. Having offered some late-night assistance to Eghbal (Ebrahim Azizi) in the wake of an auto accident, Vahid (Vahid Mobasseri) grows convinced that he recognizes the supposed stranger’s voice as that of his torturer during a grueling prison spell. Enlisting others who endured interrogation at the hands of the same callous tormentor, Vahid abducts Eghbal and tries to motivate himself to brutally balance the scales of justice. But Eghbal insists, and quite compellingly so, that Vahid’s vigilantes have the wrong man.
Of course, Panahi is well-acquainted with the wraith of Iranian authorities. Directed in the wake of his latest incarceration for criticizing the government, It Was Just an Accident sees Panahi retaining his cutting sense of humour when it comes to cruel twists of fate, while drawing on an overt sense of outrage. Deserved winner of Cannes’ Palme d’Or, his latest is a dizzying, uncompromising tour-de-force.
Palme d’Or, Cannes 2025; Oscar Submission: France
Jafar Panahi
Vahid Mobasseri, Ebrahim Azizi, Madjid Panahi, Maryam Afshari, Hadis Pakbaten, Mohamad Ali Elyasmehr
Iran/France/Luxembourg
2025
In Farsi with English subtitles
Book Tickets
Credits
Producer
Philippe Martin, Jafar Panahi
Screenwriter
Jafar Panahi
Cinematography
Amin Jafari
Editor
Amir Etminan
Production Design
Leila Naghdi
Missing VIFF? Check Out What's Playing at the VIFF Centre
Once Upon a Time in Harlem
Once Upon a Time in Harlem splices together footage shot by William Greaves in 1972 of a group of Harlem Renaissance luminaries in conversation at Duke Ellington’s townhouse. The film is a living archive of memory, disagreement, style, and Black genius.
Get Out
Guess who's coming to dinner? Daniel Kaluuya is the Black boyfriend justifiably anxious about meeting his white girlfriend's folks for the first time in Jordan Peele's satiric modern horror classic, one of a series curated by our VIFF+ Premium members.
Possible Love
Lee Chang-dong’s first film since Burning (2018) is a sardonic, slow-burning satire about two couples: a documentary filmmaker married to a wealthy businessman, and a working-class family struggling to make ends meet after the husband has been laid off.
The Haunting
Directed by Robert Wise in 1963, The Haunting is a classic exercise in the suggestive power of cinema, adapted from Shirley Jackson's 1959 best-seller, The Haunting of Hill House, a provocative blend of supernatural and psychological horror.
A. Rimbaud
Patrick Wang (The Bread Factory) presents the life of French poet Arthur Rimbaud in this staggeringly adventurous and deeply considered movie, a three-hour, one-man show quite unlike anything we have seen before. "Poetic, audacious and singular."