There's a short list of just five filmmakers who have managed the “grand slam” of film, winning prizes at the three major European film festivals: Cannes, Berlin, and Venice. Under any circumstance, the feat is rare. In Jafar Panahi’s case, it borders on the surreal. As the newest member of this prestigious club, every one of his victories has been earned while working under restrictions supposed to end an artistic career entirely.

One of Iran's most recognized filmmakers, Jafar Panahi is known for politically outspoken work. In 2010, his criticism of the Iranian regime earned him a six-year prison sentence and a twenty-year ban on filmmaking and travel. He didn’t stop, shooting “This Is Not a Film” on an iPhone in 2011, which he smuggled to Cannes on a USB drive hidden in a cake. His latest film, “It Was Just an Accident”, won the Palme d’Or at Cannes earlier this year and was filmed secretly in and around Tehran.

“It Was Just an Accident” follows a group of former political prisoners who become convinced that a man is the interrogator who once tortured them, a figure they never saw clearly but remember through voice, habit, and a squeaking prosthetic. They load him into a van, and what begins as a chance encounter stretches into a long day circling Tehran, stopping to track down other former prisoners, arguing over whether the man’s voice was enough to prove who he is, and weighing whether to take justice into their own hands.The film’s final moments really do stay with viewers long after the credits, circling back to its moral knot about whether revenge can ever be anything other than more violence. 

When Panahi was barred from leaving Iran in 2010, that travel ban remained for more than a decade. After 14 years of enforced confinement, Panahi’s travel ban was lifted in 2023. He now lives in France, and is completing a six-city tour with “It Was Just an Accident” in the United States. He visited the Coolidge Corner Theatre on November 25th to screen his film, speak in a Q&A moderated by the film critic Ty Burr, and receive the inaugural Coolidge Impact Award for "artistic bravery and persistence of vision.”

After the screening, Panahi walked onto the Coolidge stage to a standing ovation. 

Panahi spoke early in the Q&A about the people he lived with in prison. He didn’t describe them as characters or inspiration, but filmmakers. “I wasn’t the one who made this film,” he said. “The people who lived with me in prison made it.”

Whenever Panahi delivered a sharp or tender line, the audience would interrupt him with applause. But then there were periods when he spoke slowly in Persian and interpreter Sheida Dayani carried his words into English, and the room went still. "I really did not want to make a film about revenge,” Panahi confessed. “Revenge and forgiveness are in the film, but they are only on the surface. They are supposed to take you to the stage of rationality for you to think what needs to be done.”

Much of the film was shot and edited in secret. Editor Amir Etminan worked entirely offline on a modest 2020 MacBook Air using proxy files and external SSDs to assemble the footage without internet access. 

Panahi turned to a simple comparison. “If you decide to leave your home, you check the weather. You think about whether you need a jacket. To make films, I also had to think about what to wear.” Panahi described beginning with low-risk shots in the desert, then gradually moving into the city until, inevitably, security forces intervened. “We had two days of shooting left,” he said. “I paused for a month, came back with a smaller team and finished only the necessary shots.”

It was not lost on moderator Ty Burr that American censorship issues are beginning to echo the pressure Panahi has lived through in Iran. Burr asked him to speak directly to young creators about artistic freedom.“We only have two types of filmmakers. Those who chase the audience. And those who make their own film and let the audience find them. The important thing is to have faith in what you do.” 

A man banned from filmmaking for a decade, detained twice, censored at home and celebrated abroad, even being sentenced to yet another year in prison and a two-year travel ban on Dec. 1, standing in a Brookline theatre telling young artists that the only real obligation is to know your own taste and refuse to bend.

It’s one thing to hear that philosophy from a director on an awards stage. It’s another to hear it from someone who finished this very film after interrogations, surveillance, and threats to his cast. The room seemed to recognize the difference. Burr joked that we shouldn’t expect a Panahi superhero movie anytime soon, which felt right, as his films have never needed costumes to show how much ordinary people are asked to carry.