sJafar Panahi's ‘It Was Just an Accident' (2025) is an extraordinary film about resistance, trauma and compassion. By turns thrilling, funny, haunting, it works both as a film and an essential insight into the complexity of contemporary Iran.
There's a scene in a beautiful bookshop where the character of the gentle dissident intellectual Salar is based. I keep thinking of that bookshop, and the real-life community it serves, and the film-makers, and their families, etc. I hope they're OK, and that eventually they can have the future they deserve.
Here is a powerful recent interview with Panahi on the Daily Show. The dignity that he and his interpreter display is very moving.
