It Was Just An Accident (12A)

About the show

This at times blackly comic and much acclaimed Iranian thriller starts with a man taking his car into a garage after a minor accident. He meets mechanic Vahid who, hearing the distinctive squeak from the man’s prosthetic leg, decides that this is Eghbal, a sadist who tortured him in prison, and so kidnaps him – but then doubts set in. Winner of the Palme d’Or 2025 with this film, director Jafar Panahi (The White Balloon, Offside and Taxi), using his own experience of persecution and incarceration (this is his first film since being released from jail in 2023), has executed a visceral, claustrophobic vision of the autocratic theocracy that’s hounded him and others. (S) (A Guardian Top 50 of 2025 film).