Iranian dissident filmmaker Jafar Panahi won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival on Saturday for his gripping revenge thriller It Was Just an Accident, marking a landmark moment for a director banned from leaving Iran for more than 15 years.
The award, presented by Cate Blanchett, honored a storied career defined by defiance – Panahi was jailed three years ago and launched a hunger strike, yet continued to create films in secret, including "This Is Not a Film," shot in his living room, and "Taxi," filmed inside a car.
As his name was announced, the audience erupted into a thunderous standing ovation. Stunned, Panahi raised his arms in disbelief, then applauded his cast and crew, visibly moved by the moment. Onstage, he was embraced by jury president Juliette Binoche, who had famously held up his name at Cannes in 2010 while he was under house arrest.
On stage, Panahi said what mattered most was the future of his country.
"Let us join forces,” Panahi said. "No one should tell us what kind of clothes we should wear, or what we should or shouldn't do.”
The win for It Was Just an Accident extends one of the most unprecedented streaks in movies: the indie distributor Neon has backed the last six Palme d’Or winners. Neon, which acquired It Was Just an Accident for North American distribution after its premiere in Cannes, follows its Palmes for Parasite, Titane, Triangle of Sadness, Anatomy of a Fall and Another Round.
All those films were Oscar contenders, and two, Parasite and Another Round, won best picture.
Last year, filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof fled Iran to attend the premiere of his film in Cannes and resettle in Germany. Panahi, though, has said life in exile isn't for him. He planned to fly home to Tehran on Sunday.
It Was Just an Accident was inspired by Panahi's experience in jail. In it, a group of former prisoners encounter the man who terrorized them in jail and weigh whether or not to kill him.
The Cannes closing ceremony followed a major power outage that struck southeastern France on Saturday in what police suspected was arson. Only a few hours before stars began streaming down the red carpet, power was restored in Cannes.
The Grand Prix, or second prize, was awarded to Joachim Trier’s Norwegian family drama Sentimental Value, his lauded follow-up to The Worst Person in the World.
Kleber Mendonca Filho’s Brazilian political thriller The Secret Agent won two big awards: best director for Mendonca Filho and best actor for Wagner Moura.
The jury prize was split between two films: Óliver Laxe’s desert road trip Sirat and Mascha Schilinski’s German, generation-spanning drama Sound of Falling.
Best actress went to Nadia Melliti for The Little Sister, Hafsia Herzi’s French coming-of-age drama.
Belgian brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne won best screenplay for their latest drama, Young Mothers. The Dardennes are two-time Palme d’Or winners.
Cannes’ award for best first film went to Hasan Hadi for The President’s Cake, making it the first Iraqi film to win an award at the festival.
Saturday’s ceremony brings to a close the 78th Cannes Film Festival, where geopolitics cast a long shadow both on screen and off. Shortly before the French Riviera extravaganza, which is also the world’s largest movie market, U.S. President Donald Trump floated the idea of a 100% tariff on movies made overseas.
Most filmmakers responded with a shrug, calling the plan illogical. “Can you hold up the movie in customs? It doesn’t ship that way,” said Wes Anderson, who premiered his latest, The French Dispatch, at the festival.
That was one of the top American films in Cannes, along with Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods, the Christopher McQuarrie-Tom Cruise actioner Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning, and Ari Aster’s Disappointment Blvd.
