This is not just a film – it’s a revolution

This is not a review.

This is not about cinema alone.

This is a message, for anyone still listening.

When Jafar Panahi stood on stage at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, accepting the Palme d'Or for It Was Just an Accident, he wasn't just holding a trophy. He was carrying a nation on his back.

For over two decades, Panahi was banned from traveling. For more than ten years, he was forbidden to direct, write, or even speak publicly. And yet, there he stood in the spotlight, after years in the shadows, with a voice that could not be silenced.

But this is not about one man's freedom. It never was. This is about Iran.

A film that shouldn't exist

It Was Just an Accident was filmed without official authorization. In Iran, that alone is an act of defiance.

Panahi made the film without permits, under constant threat of arrest, while officially banned from filmmaking. The film (a dark, satirical reflection on justice and denial) is inspired by stories he heard while imprisoned in Tehran's notorious Evin prison.

It is a mirror held up to a regime that insists its violence is accidental. It is a refusal to play by rules that are written in blood.

The film is full of moments that would never be allowed under the regime's strict censorship laws. The women in the film appear without hijabs. The characters challenge the narrative of the regime. The air is thick with a freedom that is outlawed in the real Iran.

This film breathes the one thing the regime fears most: freedom.

This film is a slap in the face to the silence the regime tries to enforce. Yet, he risked everything to make it. And, it was made.

The speech heard around the world

When he took the stage at Cannes, there was no applause loud enough to match the gravity of that moment. It had been 22 years since Panahi had last attended a festival abroad. That absence wasn't by choice - it was a sentence imposed by the repressive regime that has held a nation hostage since 1979. And now, finally free to speak, he did not hold back:

"Let no one tell us what to wear, what to do, or what films to make," he said, steady and clear.

For years, he was banned from travel, yet he made movies; imprisoned, yet he made movies; banned from filmmaking, yet he smuggled out his films on USB drives in hidden and creative ways. It is unknown how this film reached Cannes. But one thing is for sure: Panahi did speak at the 78th edition of the Cannes Film Festival:

"The day I was released from prison, as I emerged and looked behind me at the tall walls, I didn't know how to feel… was I relieved or anxious? My dear friends still remained imprisoned behind those walls. I asked myself, What am I going to do outside?"

He did what he had to do: storytelling. Not the way the regime enforces, but the only way he knows, by telling the truth – Iran's truth.

With clear intention to return to his homeland (he arrived on Monday morning, May 26, in Tehran), and knowing well the scrutiny and oppression will only heighten, he continued:

"I hope the moment we all long for and fight for reaches us soon, and we are no longer obligated to go underground to make our films."

A revolution in every frame

As Panahi and his team stepped onto the red carpet, a song filled the air.

It was the voice of Toomaj Salehi, the underground Iranian rapper who was imprisoned, tortured, and sentenced to death for lyrics that dared to speak against the regime. His words were a lifeline for Iran's youth during the Woman, Life, Freedom uprising. Now free, after more than a year behind bars, his voice echoed from the Cannes' speakers.

It was not just a tribute. It was a message:

We are still here.

We have not forgotten.

You cannot silence us.

Not a celebration, but a signal

Panahi didn't celebrate his win.

"How can I rejoice?" he asked, his voice cracking. "How can I be free while in Iran, there are still so many of the greatest directors and actresses of Iranian cinema who, because they participated in and supported the demonstrators, are today forbidden to work?"

This was not a victorious moment, it was a flare in the dark.

He didn't give a speech for the cameras. He spoke for those who couldn't, and with his people by his side.

What now?

The international press called it a "symbolic act of resistance." But symbols don't protect artists. Speeches don't stop bullets.

The world must ACT now. Because the revolution that Panahi speaks of is not just on screen.

It's in prison cells. In graves. In classrooms turned battlegrounds. It's on the lips of girls who are not allowed to sing, but do anyway.

Say her name: Parastoo Ahmadi.

December 2024. She held a live "imaginary" concert, no audience, no stage, no hijab, and streamed on YouTube for anyone brave enough to listen.

"I, Parastoo, a young girl who wishes to sing for a people she loves. It's a right I couldn't give up: to sing for this land I love passionately, here, at this symbolic spot in our beloved Iran, where our history and legends intersect. Listen to my voice in this imaginary concert and imagine this beautiful country..."

This is not the end

It's no coincidence that It Was Just an Accident exists, let alone that it reached the world stage. This film was co-produced by Luxembourg and France, with Bidibul Productions playing a vital role in giving a platform to a voice the Iranian regime tried to silence.

This wasn't just a creative alliance, it was a principled stand. At a time when Iranian artists are surveilled, arrested, and silenced, Bidibul didn't walk away. They stepped up. They chose art as action. Collaboration as defiance. Cinema as conscience.

This is what it means to stand on the right side of history, and not just with empty words and gestures on social media accounts.

And now, the responsibility must spread. Because silence, especially from those with resources and power to reach and protect, is complicity.

So who else will act?

Producers and studios: fund the stories that regimes fear most. Build coalitions that protect endangered artists.

Festivals and institutions: don't just open your doors, spotlight the censored and run discussions sessions followed by the screenings. Champion the exiled.

Audiences: amplify these voices. Make them unavoidable. Be the echo.

Governments and cultural ministries: go beyond symbolic statements. Offer visas, grants, residencies, not just to celebrate dissident artists after the fact, but to help protect them in real time.

Policymakers and diplomats: stop shaking hands with regimes that kill artists, jail students, and silence women. Let your cultural alliances reflect your human rights rhetoric.

This is no longer about cinema alone. This is about what kind of world we allow to be built, and who we choose to build it with.

Because It Was Just an Accident wasn't just a film. It was an act of courage.

They wanted to hide his film. Instead, it played to a standing ovation.

They wanted to break him. Instead, he came back stronger with a camera in one hand and the truth in the other.

And in doing so, he reminded the world:

This is not just a film. It's a revolution. A message. And a CALL. Not to watch, but to answer.

And it's far from over.