Neon‘s latest Cannes Film Festival Palme d’Or winner, It Was Just An Accident from Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi will open in theatres in North America October 15, 2025, setting the film up for an awards campaign in categories including Best Picture, Director, Original Screenplay and International Film, although the latter may be in question as it seems unlikely Panahi’s film, critical of the government and treatment of its citizens, would be selected by Iran as its official Oscar entry for the International Film competition.
Following the pattern Neon head Tom Quinn explained to me for Deadline’s Cannes Disruptors issue in May, this film, which marks the sixth consecutive Palme d’Or win for Neon, will follow what he openly calls his “playbook” and emulate the release pattern employed for the company’s past two Palme d’Or/Oscar Best Picture winners, 2024’s Anora and 2019’s Parasite. The film recently received the prestigious Sydney Film Prize at the 72nd Sydney Film Festival. Neon acquired the North American rights to the film in Cannes, and is separating it, release-wise, from their Cannes Grand Prize winner (second place), Joaquin Trier’s Sentimental Value which, as recently announced, will open domestically on November 7.
Inspired by Panahi’s second Iranian incarceration, It Was Just An Accident follows what begins as a minor accident as it sets in motion a series of escalating consequences. The film was produced by Jafar Panahi and Philippe Martin and co-produced by Sandrine Dumas and Christel Henon, with David Thion and Lilina Eche serving as associate producers. The film is a Les Films Pelléas and Jafar Panahi Production from Iran/France and Luxembourg. mk2 Films represents the international rights to the film.
The distributor notes that with the film’s recent Palme d’Or win at Cannes, Panahi has now completed the European festival triple crown, having won the top prize at all three major European film festivals – Venice, Berlin, and Cannes – over the course of his career. He previously received the Golden Lion in Venice for The Circle and Berlin’s Golden Bear for Taxi, becoming only the fourth director to ever achieve this distinction.
It Was Just An Accident marks the second collaboration between Neon and Jafar Panahi, following The Year of the Everlasting Storm. Continuing its strong support for international cinema, in Cannes last year Neon picked up The Seed of the Sacred Fig from exiled Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof, which went on to be nominated for a BAFTA and for Best International Feature at the 97th Academy Awards. However, that film, as well, was not looked on favorably by Iran and instead became Germany’s official Oscar entry due to its filmmaker’s German residency.
Jafar Panahi won the Palme D’Or award for ‘It Was Just an Accident’ at Cannes 2025.
Lionel Hahn/Getty Images
As Deadline pointed out at the time of its Cannes win last month, its strong connnection to French distributors, and the fact that Panahi’s daughter lives in France might make a similar case for that country to enter this very Iranian film as their official selection, but that seems highly unlikely. Certainly Iran’s Islamic Republic government will likely block it because aside from Panahi’s outspoken stance against its stranglehold on democracy which has twice landed him in prison, the film is highly critical of Iran’s penal system on the back of the director’s own firsthand experiences. Thus, a campaign directed toward the other categories is most likely.
Current events surrounding Iran and the United States make for a potentially volatile political situation that may also have an effect on the film’s ongoing awards season campaign, including whether its director, who is deterimined to live in Iran, can even support it in person. His status to even travel outside of the country might be in question (although he did come to Cannes), and particularly to the U.S. which has imposed a travel ban on citizens from several countries including Iran.
Stay tuned.
