Neon on Thursday released the trailer for It Was Just an Accident, Iranian director Jafar Panahi‘s intense thriller that won the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. The distributor has set an October 15 release date for New York and an October 17 one for Los Angeles after stops at TIFF and the New York fests.
Vahid Mubasseri stars as a man who believes he found the man who tortured him while he was serving a prison sentence for asking to be paid his wages. Seeking revenge, he kidnaps him and begins to bury him alive in the desert. But does he have the right man?
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Needing to know for sure, he finds a wedding photographer (Maryam Adshari) who was in jail with him at the time hoping she’d confirm the man’s identity — though she is in the middle of a wedding photo shoot with a bride (Hadis Pakbaten) and groom (Majid Panahi). The tension rises as they are all thrown into the mix.
Mohamad Polielyasmehr, Georges Hashemzadea, Ebrahim Azizzi, Delmaz Najafi and Afssaneh Najamabadi also star.
The pic from Panahi, the master filmmaker who has won Berlin’s top prize (for 2015’s Taxi) and Venice’s top prize (for 2000’s The Circle), was based on his experiences in his own time in an Iranian prison for protesting the arrest of other Iranian filmmakers. Like his past movies, he shot this film without permits and in secrecy, with threats of arresting the crew and shutting down production during shooting near Tehran.
Panahi also produced Accident with Philippe Martin. The film is co-produced by Sandrine Dumas and Christel Henon, with David Thion and Lilina Eche associate producers. It is a Les Films Pelléas and Jafar Panahi Production from Iran/France and Luxembourg.
Watch the trailer above.