Jafar Panahi: “Turn a simple accident was permanent stress” (interview)

We met the Iranian filmmaker, imprisoned and then under house arrest in his country for 14 years, the day before obtaining his very deserved golden palm. Confidences.

How was the idea ofA simple accident And this fortuitous meeting between men and women imprisoned as you may have been yourself and the one who was their executioner?

The idea for the film was born a few months after my release from prison. After being able to take a step back, I started wondering what I was going to be able to do. And I immediately understood that I was not going to be able to escape everything I had experienced behind bars, all the stories I had heard. Everything brought me back to that. And it is the combination of all these stories- mine and those of others- which allowed me to create the characters of this scenario by trying to represent these people as well as possible, to give them to see in the diversity of their profiles as their reactions. And it is this material that allows me to write a story.

Without revealing it, the final scene ofA simple accident which rests entirely on the sound is absolutely memorable. When you go into writing, do you have it in mind?

No way ! What I need is the click, the starting point. And then I sail. In any case on this film, because on others, it could happen to have the total arc of the story right away. But for A simple accidentthis end has never stopped changing. And this until the final stretch of the mixing. I really hesitated very much because I had boxed several possible ends.

How do you live a clandestine shoot, as you are unfortunately used to doing them?

It is obviously complicated. Each minute can tip the destinies of all those on the set, in front as behind the camera. We all live in permanent stress. As soon as someone passes nearby, you are decentralized, you wonder who it is, why they pass there, if he comes to spy on you to denounce you. And this stress, this pressure remains somewhere intact today. Thus my actresses who had infinite courage to participate in this film and to play it without sailing were summoned by the police and suffered interrogations after the announcement of the selection ofA Simple accident in Cannes. They have been fixed ultimatums and yet they decided to come despite everything. Without obviously knowing what will happen when they return

Your first rod dates back 30 years where you won the gold camera for your first feature film, The white balloon. What memory do you keep of it?

Frankly, I had no idea where I put my feet. I made this film very young, I was just released from college. So the only thing I was trying with The white balloonit was to be recognized by my teachers who expected a lot from me. And then, at the time, there were not social networks, the Iranian media did not speak of canes. So it was a total discovery for me.

A simple accident: Iranian Jafar Panahi strikes hard (critic)

Thirty years later, you who have been forbidden to release the territory so long to present your films in the festival, how did you experience the Cannes projection ofA simple accident ?

Again, with lots of surprises. I did not expect for example that spectators laugh as much. But I also heard crying. In fact, I was on the lookout and I really felt the way spectators recognized themselves in my film. At one point, I saw one of them get up. And you will find it ridiculous but I thought he was going, that he did not like. And then he just changed space to better take advantage of the projection. I was able to blow! (laughs)

A simple accident. Of Jafar Panahi. With Vahid Mobasheri, Maria Afshari, Ebrahim Azizi … Duration: 1h41. Released September 10