Hull Independent Cinema: It Was Just An Accident

Dir Jafar Panahi | Iran, France, Luxembourg, USA | 2025 | 103 mins | Rated 12A | Persian
After a minor accident, Eghbal takes his car to a nearby garage, where former political prisoner Vahid hears the distinctive sound of Eghbal’s prosthetic leg and believes him to be ‘Peg-Leg’, a notorious torturer from Vahid’s past. With a group of fellow ex-prisoners, Vahid kidnaps Eghbal and they embark on a tense journey into the desert in an attempt to verify if he really is their former tormentor. As suspicion, guilt, and conflicting memories swirl, the group grapples with a wrenching moral question: should they avenge the horrors of the past, or risk repeating them?
Starring Vahid Mobasseri, Mariam Afshari, Ebrahim Azizi

AWARDS AND FESTIVALS
Cannes; Winner, Palme d’Or
Montclair FF: Winner, World Cinema Audience Award
Sydney FF: Winner, Best Film
Gotham Awards: Nominee, Best Int’l Feature, Best Screenplay, Best Director
European Film Awards: Nominee, Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay

REVIEWS
“Plays like an ideal melding of the filmmaker Panahi was and the filmmaker he’s been forced to become. It’s an endlessly fascinating and extraordinarily powerful work.” Bilge Ebiri, New York Magazine
“”It is just so intelligent; so blisteringly powerful; so light of touch. It is also one of those rare movies that manages to mix an unlikely trinity of shaggy-dog comedy, revenge thriller and seriously heavy political shit.” ★★★★★ Nick Howells, London Standard
“It’s another very impressive serio-comic film from one of the most distinctive and courageous figures in world cinema.” ★★★★ Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
“Cinema still has its uses, and Panahi summons all the medium’s expressive powers to deliver a fierce, unambiguous denunciation of authoritarian regimes the world over.” Justin Chang, The New Yorker “