Palme d’Or-winning director Jafar Panahi returns home

An Iranian filmmaker has been cheered at home after winning Cannes Film Festival’s top prize.

Jafar Panahi touched down in Tehran’s international airport on Monday, two days after his Palme d’Or victory for revenge thriller It Was Just Accident.

Panahi has been imprisoned multiple times in Iran, most recently for protesting the detention of filmmakers criticising the authorities. This was his first visit to Cannes in 15 years, where his films have been shown in his absence due to a travel ban.

His winning film depicted torture in Iranian jails and ignited a back-and-forth between French and Iranian officials.

The celebrated director, who now holds prizes from Europe’s three major film festivals, was seen grinning and holding a bouquet of flowers as he embraced his friends.

Among the crowd was fellow Iranian film director Medhi Nadari, who shared footage of the moment on Instagram calling Panahi’s return “history-making”.

One person was heard shouting “woman, life, freedom” as Panahi passed through the airport, according to the Agence France-Presse news agency. The phrase was the slogan for protests that broke out across Iran following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody in 2022.

In his acceptance speech at Cannes, Panahi said, “What’s most important now is our country and the freedom of our country,” and called for Iranians to “join forces”.

“No-one should dare tell us what kind of clothes we should wear, what we should do, or what we should not do,” he said.

The film’s win has given rise to a diplomatic row between French and Iranian officials, after French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot dubbed it “a gesture of resistance against the Iranian regime’s oppression” in a post on X.

IRNA, Iran’s state media, reported that a French diplomat had been summoned in Tehran so that it could formally protest the comments as “insulting and unfounded”.

Returning to Tehran fulfils a pledge Panahi made while speaking to reporters in Cannes.

“As soon as I finish my work here I will go back,” he said, adding “I will ask myself what’s my next film going to be.”