CANNES 2025 Awards Jafar Panahi wins the Palme d’Or for It Was Just an Accident
The 64-year-old director, who last attended the festival in person in 2003, addressed his prize to all Iranians, saying the most important thing was Iran and the country's freedom.
"Hoping that we will reach a day when no one will tell us what to wear or not wear, what to do or not do,"he said, in an apparent reference to Iran's strict Islamic dress code for women.
After being presented with the Palme d’Or, Panahi thanked his family and collaborators, and said: “I think it’s the moment to ask everyone, all the Iranians with opinions different from others, in Iran and throughout the world … I’d like to ask them one thing: Put all the problems and differences aside. The most important thing is surely our country and the freedom of our country.”
After a competition boasting a very high level of quality overall, without any clear favourite having emerged, and after an epic final Saturday with a blackout having paralysed the entire city for five hours, the main jury (presided over by Juliette Binoche) of the 78th Cannes Film Festival has delivered a relatively conservative winners’ list and made history by handing the Palme d’Or toIt Was Just an Accident by Jafar Panahi. The Iranian filmmaker (who won the Best Screenplay Award on the Croisette in 2018 with 3 Faces) has thus pulled off a hat-trick after his Golden Bear at Berlin in 2015 for Taxi and his Golden Lion at Venice in 2000 for The Circle, a feat achieved only by a select few:Michelangelo Antonioni, Robert Altman and Henri-Georges Clouzot. Panahiis the second filmmaker from his country to have won Cannes’ top prize, afterAbbas Kiarostamidid so in 1997 withTaste of Cherry.
The third big winner at this edition was The Secret Agent by Brazil’s Kleber Mendonça Filho (many a critics’ favourite), which took home two gongs: the Best Director Award for the filmmaker himself and the Best Actor Award for his fellow countryman Wagner Moura.
There was a big surprise in store when it came to the winner of the Best Actress Award, which went to France’s Nadia Melliti for her first-ever film role, in The Little Sister by her fellow countrywoman Hafsia Hezi.
Seemingly confirming the rumour that the jury had had problems agreeing on the winners’ list, a double Jury Prize was handed out to the revelation Sound of Falling by Germany’s Mascha Schilinski and the explosive Sirât by Spaniard Oliver Laxe, while a Special Award acknowledged the sheer visual audacity of Chinese director Bi Gan’s Resurrection.
As is their wont, Belgium’s Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne were once again somewhere among the Cannes awardees (having won eight prizes in total), this time with the Best Screenplay Award for Young Mothers, a reward that they previously pocketed in 2008 for Lorna’s Silence.
It’s also worth noting that the Caméra d’Or singled out The President’s Cake by Iraq’s Hasan Hadi (unveiled in the Directors’ Fortnight), and a Special Mention went to My Father's Shadow by UK-Nigerian helmer Akinola Davies Jr (presented in Un Certain Regard).
Last but not least, the Short Film Palme d’Or was granted to I'm Glad You're Dead Now by Palestinian actor-director Tawfeek Barhom, with a Special Mention going to Ali by Bangladeshi director Adnan Al Rajeev.
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