AT THE TRIPLEX: Surviving Evil in ‘It Was Just an Acident’

AT THE TRIPLEX: Surviving evil in ‘It Was Just an Acident’

While driving home on a dark road, a father admonishes his young daughter for playing music too loud, telling her they have to be considerate of their neighbors. “It’s not done,” he says. It is a rote moment of parenting that quickly becomes an ominous echo in Jafar Panahi’s “It Was Just Accident,” coming to The Triplex this week. “It Was Just an Accident,” 2025. Photo courtesy of Neon. When the man and his family pull into a mechanic’s shop to …

It Was Just an Accident: a ‘striking’ attack on the Iranian regime

“Brave” is an overused word in film reviews, said Wendy Ide in The Observer – applied to anything from an actor’s weight gain for a role to “an unconventional editing decision”. But Iranian director Jafar Panahi really is brave. His films have been acclaimed abroad, but at home they have put him at odds with the authoritarian regime in Tehran: accused of being an anti-state “propagandist”, he has twice been jailed, and for a long time he was ban…

It Was Just an Accident (2025) Film Review

After winning the Palme d’Or at Cannes, Jafar Panahi’s Iranian tragicomic thriller opens in cinemas. Vahid (Vahid Mobasseri) is an everyday mechanic whose traumatic past comes flashing back the moment he sets eyes on Eghbal (Ebrahim Azizi), a man who walks with a squeaky prosthetic leg. Suspecting him as one of the regime’s torturers, Vahid abducts Eghbal and rounds up a band of fellow survivors, all of whom were punished by the man they call “Pe