accident

Marking an extraordinary reversal of fortune, including stints in prison and house arrest during years of clandestine work when he was forbidden by authorities from directing, Iran’s Jafar Panahi triumphed at the Cannes Film Festival on Saturday, winning the event’s top award, the Palme d’Or, for “It Was Just an Accident.”

Appearing to bask in the vindication, Panahi clasped his hands behind his head and leaned back seated in sunglasses, savoring the moment while those around him stood in an ovation.

“It Was Just an Accident,” a tense drama of retribution about a torturer’s abduction by his victims, will be released in 2025 on an as-yet-unannounced date by Neon, the distributor that can now claim an unprecedented six-Palme winning streak, after 2019’s “Parasite,” 2021’s “Titane,” 2022’s “Triangle of Sadness,” 2023’s “Anatomy of a Fall” and 2024’s “Anora” all prevailed. (There was no festival held in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.)

Through a translator, Panahi accepted his award humbly and spoke to the universal impulse to make art. “We don’t know why we do it,” he said. “It’s something I watch my small children do. They sing and dance before they can speak. But it’s another language. It could be a language of unification.”

This year’s Cannes jury was chaired by the veteran French star Juliette Binoche, who deliberated with a group sourced from several countries and disciplines. Jury members included the American actors Halle Berry and Jeremy Strong, India’s Payal Kapadia (director of “All We Imagine as Light”) and Korean filmmaker Hong Sang-soo.

Cannes’ runner-up award, the Grand Prix, went to “Sentimental Value,” a domestic drama about a family of artists directed by Norway’s Joachim Trier, who broke through in 2021 with “The Worst Person in the World,” which earned two Oscar nominations.

The festival’s Jury Prize — essentially third place — was shared by two movies: Oliver Laxe’s “Sirât” and Mascha Schilinski’s “Sound of Falling.” Ties are not unusual in this category; they’ve occurred as recently as 2022 and as far back as 1957, when Cannes honored both Ingmar Berman’s “The Seventh Seal” and Andrzej Wajda’s “Kanał.”

Taking both the directing prize and the award for best actor was Kleber Mendonça Filho’s “The Secret Agent,” a Brazilian crime thriller set in 1977 starring Wagner Maura (“Civil War”). In the hotly contested category of best actress, where on-the-ground predictions varied between Jennifer Lawrence (“Die, My Love), Elle Fanning (“Sentimental Value”) and Zoey Deutch (“Nouvelle Vague”), Nadia Melliti pulled off an upset for her turn in “The Little Sister,” about a French Algerian teen living in Paris and coming out to her Muslim family.

The film is inspired by dissident director Jafar Panahi’s own experience in jail.

An Iranian thriller film that explores corruption and state violence in the country has won the the Palme d’Or, the coveted top prize at the Cannes Film Festival.

It Was Just an Accident, directed by dissident Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi, was crowned at the world-famous festival on Saturday, hours after a power outage briefly threw the event off course.

The festival’s crowd burst into a roaring standing ovation for Panahi, who has endured years of travel bans and prison terms in Iran due to his provocative cinema, often produced in secret. He had been banned from leaving Iran for more than 15 years.

“Art mobilises the creative energy of the most precious, most alive part of us. A force that transforms darkness into forgiveness, hope and new life,” said jury president Juliette Binoche when announcing the award.

On stage, Panahi said what mattered most was the future of his country.

“Let us join forces,” Panahi said. “No one should tell us what kind of clothes we should wear, or what we should or shouldn’t do.”

Partly inspired by Panahi’s own experience in jail, It Was Just An Accident follows a man named Vahid (played by Vahid Mobasseri), who kidnaps a man with a false leg who looks just like the one who tortured him in prison and ruined his life.

Vahid sets out to verify with other prison survivors that it is indeed their torturer, and then decide what to do with him.

Critics have praised the film as a clever, symbolic exploration of justice that blends dark humour with its intense themes.

Iraqi film “The President’s Cake” wins Best First Film

The festival’s Grand Prix, or second prize, was awarded to Joachim Trier’s Norwegian family drama, Sentimental Value, his lauded follow-up to The Worst Person in the World.

Kleber Mendonca Filho’s Brazilian political thriller, The Secret Agent, won two big awards: best director for Fihlo and best actor for Wagner Moura.

The jury prize was split between two films: Oliver Laxe’s desert road trip, Sirat and Mascha Schilinski’s German, generation-spanning drama, Sound of Falling.”

Best actress went to Nadia Melliti for The Little Sister, Hafsia Herzi’s French coming-of-age drama.

Cannes also honoured Hasan Hadi’s The President’s Cake with a best first film award, marking the first time an Iraqi film has won an award at the festival.

The Cannes closing ceremony took place after a major power outage struck southeastern France on Saturday, knocking out traffic lights and forcing businesses to close along the main shopping street in the Alpes-Maritimes holiday region. Police suspect arson as the cause.

Geopolitical tensions were also a constant backdrop at the festival, with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the genocide in Gaza and US President Donald Trump’s proposal of tariffs on foreign-made films fuelling discussion.

More than 900 actors and filmmakers signed an open letter denouncing the genocide in Gaza, according to the organisers.

SEOUL, May 23 (UPI) — North Korea began a full-scale investigation into an accident that damaged a new warship at its launch ceremony this week, state-run media reported Friday, with investigators vowing that those culpable “can never evade their responsibility for the crime.”

The accident occurred on Wednesday at the Chongjin Shipyard during the launch ceremony for the 5,000-ton destroyer. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who was in attendance, called the incident a “criminal act” and said it “could not be tolerated.”

South Korea’s military assessed afterward that the North had attempted to “side-launch” the vessel by sliding it into the water sideways rather than launching it from a drydock, a technique analysts believe Pyongyang had never used before.

Satellite imagery captured by Airbus Space and shared on X on Thursday by British research organization Open Source Centre showed the warship listing on its side, draped by blue tarpaulins. OSC called the coverings “a visible attempt to contain the disaster.”

While the North’s initial media account on Thursday claimed that sections of the ship’s hull were crushed during the launch mishap, Friday’s report in state-run Korean Central News Agency downplayed the damage.

“Detailed underwater and internal inspection of the warship confirmed that, unlike the initial announcement, there were no holes made at the warship’s bottom,” the KCNA report said.

The hull starboard was scratched and seawater flowed into the stern section, KCNA said, calling the extent of the damage “not serious.”

It would take around 10 days to restore the warship’s damaged side, the report added.

Kim Jong Un blamed government officials, engineers and shipyard workers for the incident, KCNA reported on Thursday. He warned that their “irresponsible errors” would be dealt with at a plenary meeting of the ruling Workers’ Party central committee next month.

The accident “brought the dignity and self-respect of our state to a collapse,” Kim said, and ordered the ship to be restored before the June meeting.

Hong Kil Ho, manager of the Chongjin Shipyard, was summoned by authorities, the KCNA report said Friday.

The ruling party’s Central Military Commission instructed investigators to determine the cause of the accident and find those responsible for it, KCNA said.

“No matter how good the state of the warship is, the fact that the accident is an unpardonable criminal act remains unchanged, and those responsible for it can never evade their responsibility for the crime,” the military commission said.

The destroyer was the second warship introduced by North Korea in recent weeks, following the launch of its 5,000-ton Choe Hyon destroyer at the Nampo Shipyard on April 25. That vessel is armed with a wide range of weapons, including supersonic cruise missiles and strategic cruise missiles, according to North Korean reports.

Photos released by the North showed that the Choe Hyon’s missile and radar systems resemble those found on Russian vessels, prompting speculation that Pyongyang received technical assistance from Moscow in its development.

North Korea has deployed troops, artillery and weapons to Russia to aid in Moscow’s war against Ukraine, and is believed to be receiving much-needed financial support and advanced military technology for its own weapons programs.

The warship damaged during the launch accident appears to be similarly equipped to the Choe Hyon, South Korea’s military said Thursday.

Vessel damaged as a result of ‘absolute carelessness, irresponsibility and unscientific empiricism’, state media says.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has reprimanded officials over a “serious accident and criminal act” that resulted in damage to a newly built warship, state media has reported.

The 5,000-tonne destroyer suffered damage to its hull when a transport cradle detached prematurely during a launch ceremony in the northeastern city of Chongjin, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported on Thursday, blaming the incident on “inexperienced command and operational carelessness”.

After witnessing the incident, Kim made the “stern assessment” that the accident was caused by “absolute carelessness, irresponsibility and unscientific empiricism,” which “could not be tolerated”, the KCNA said.

Kim “warned solemnly” that officials responsible for the botched launch “would have to be dealt with” at the next meeting of the central committee of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea, and “censured them for the fault”, according to the KCNA.

Kim ordered the warship to be fixed in time for a plenary meeting of the party’s central committee in June, describing the vessel’s restoration as “not merely a practical issue but a political issue directly related to the authority of the state”, according to the KCNA.

South Korea’s military said Pyongyang appeared to have failed to complete a side-launch of the ship, and it had partially capsized.

Official admissions of incompetence are uncommon in North Korea, where the ruling Kim family enjoys a near God-like status.

The disclosure comes after Kim attended the launch of a “new multipurpose destroyer” equipped with “the most powerful weapons” on April 25.

In state media reports at the time, Kim hailed the vessel as “indispensable in building up our capability for stoutly defending our maritime sovereignty” and an “important starting point of our journey towards building an advanced maritime power”.

“I feel infinitely honoured to proclaim the birth of the first warship of a new generation,” Kim was quoted as saying.