Jafar Panahi: "When the mullahs fall into our hands, what will we do with them?"
Interview by Guillaume Loison
Published on , updated on
Iranian director Jafar Panahi in Cannes, May 24, 2025. LAURENT HOU / HANS LUCAS VIA AFP
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Interview We met the Iranian filmmaker just before he won the Palme d'Or for "A Simple Accident." He speaks with the serenity of a veteran dissident, giving a glimpse of hope that the Islamic Republic, which has persecuted him for more than two decades, is living its last days.
A regular at the Cannes selection but present on the Croisette for the very first time, Iranian Jafar Panahi, survivor of the regime's prisons and winner of the 2025 Palme d'Or for his film "A Simple Accident" , spoke to Nouvel Obs, barely 24 hours before his victory . The filmmaker gave us a fascinating interview about life in Iran and the paths of resistance.
In its conception, "A Simple Accident" appears as a more direct act of rebellion than your previous works, in which you flouted the constraints imposed on you by the regime. Is this your first deliberately insurrectionary film?
I didn't have any prior intention of making a rebellious or subversive film. But the subject of "A Simple Accident" calls for that tone. I couldn't make anything other than a film about the fellow prisoners I...
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