Iran International:

France has selected Iranian director Jafar Panahi’s It Was Just An Accident, winner of this year’s Cannes Palme d’Or, as its submission for the Academy Awards in the international feature category, giving the exiled filmmaker a path to Hollywood that Tehran was unlikely to offer.

The revenge drama, produced largely in France and shot in Iran without government approval, follows a group of former political prisoners confronting a man they believe tortured them decades earlier.

The decision, announced on Wednesday, was made by an 11-member committee convened by France’s culture ministry after reviewing five finalists, including Richard Linklater’s Nouvelle Vague and Rebecca Zlotowski’s A Private Life.

Panahi, long banned from working or traveling in Iran, has spent much of the past 15 years under house arrest or in prison. He was released from jail in 2023 after a hunger strike, and edited the new film in France.

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