Iranian director Jafar Panahi triumphs with « Golden Palm » in Cannes
« The most important thing now is our country and the freedom of our country, » he said, accepting the award, quoting the BBC. « Let us join forces. No one should dare tell us what clothes we should wear, what we should do or what we should not do. »
Panahi, who has been arrested several times, and his films have been banned in Iran many times, said earlier during a press conference in Cannes, that even his closest friends have given up the hope that I will ever make films again.
| Panahi was released from prison in Iran in 2023 after being detained in 2022 after an attempt to support his colleague director Mohammad Rasulof and subsequently announced a hunger strike. |
Panahi’s clashes with Iran authorities have been dating back to 2003, when he was arrested at Tehran airport after returning from a Film Festival in Moscow. In 2010, he was sentenced to six years in prison for suspected « endangering national security » following the Green Movement protests against the Iranian government. His sentence was later changed to house arrest, the Guardian recalls.
IT WAS just an Accident tells of a car accident that unlocks a series of nightmarish events, and Guardian’s film critic Peter Bradshaw describes it as « Panachi’s most emotional movie, a movie about violence and revenge, for the pain of tyranny.
| « I told myself I didn’t know how to do anything else. I can’t change a light bulb, I can’t work with a screwdriver. I can do nothing but make movies, » he said. |
In Cannes, he said he had no intention of giving up his job. « I behave just like the other Iranians, I’m not a special case in any way. Iranian women are forbidden to go out without a headscarf, but they still do it. I do nothing more heroic. As soon as I finish my work here, I will return to Iran and ask myself what my next movie will be. »
Iranian director Mohammad Rasulof: I ran out of my home country, but she stayed in me
On the last day of the festival, the power supply was interrupted, which failed the early screenings and forced hotels, shops and cafes in the city to close. Three of the four legs on a large -voltage -high -voltage pillar of the high voltage, powered Cannes, were cut as part of a malicious act, prosecutor of the French city of Grass Damian Savarzex told the French press, quoted BTA. But the festival was not largely affected because the festival hall, where the closure ceremony is held, has an emergency power supply.
In addition to the panhahs, the Grand Prize or Runner of « Golden Palm » was presented to director Joachim Trier for the drama of Sentimental Value, telling a director trying to reconcile with her alienated daughter-in-law by choosing her for her film.
| Accepting the award, Trier described the art, and in particular international cinema as « alternative language of unification ». |
The Little Sister star Nadia Meliti won the Best Actress Award, and the Best Actor Award went to Wagner Moura for The Secret Agent, in which he plays a father who conceals his identity in an attempt to avoid murder during the military dictatorship in Brazil. Cleber Mendona Filo won the Best Director Award for the same movie.
Actor John Riley presented the Jean-Pierre and Luke Danden Best Screenplay Award for Young Mothers. The jury award was divided between the Spanish director Olivier Lax for Sira – an apocalyptic drama with techno elements whose action unfolds in the Moroccan desert, and the « sound of falling » by German director Masha Shilinski for Sound of Fall, epic family drama. The jury also awarded a special award from Chinese director BBC for the movie Resurrection.
Alice Rovacher presented the « Golden Camera » trophy for the debut feature film by director Hassan Hadi, who accepted the first prize ever presented to an Iraqi film in Cannes.
In addition to Binoche, this year’s jury included actresses Khali Berry and Alba Rovacheer, writer Leila Slimani, actor Jeremy Strong and directors Payal Capadia, Dieudo Hamadi, Hong Sangs and Carlos Reagadas.
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