Jafar Panahi’s It Was Just an Accident, the Palme d’Or winner he shot without a permit in Iran, played among the galas of the 69th BFI London Film Festival.
Jafar Panahi’s It Was Just an Accident, the Palme d’Or winner, played the Royal Festival Hall on the South Bank on an evening listed for Saturday 11 October 2025. It was a gala of the 69th BFI London Film Festival.
Panahi was born in Mianeh in 1960 and began as an assistant to Abbas Kiarostami. His first feature, The White Balloon, won the Caméra d’Or at Cannes in 1995.
The Palme d’Or made him one of four directors to hold the top prize of Cannes, Venice and Berlin. In 2010 Iran sentenced him to six years in prison and a 20-year ban on filmmaking.
This is his first film since his release from prison in February 2023, and it draws on that incarceration. A mechanic believes he recognises the man who tortured him in prison by the squeak of a prosthetic leg, and abducts him.
Panahi shot the film without a permit, and its actresses appear without the compulsory hijab.
He had been due at the festival for a Screen Talk on Friday 10 October, which was cancelled that day. The film was later nominated for two Academy Awards.