Behind the Screen: It Was Just an Accident

IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT marks another remarkable act of defiance by Jafar Panahi, one of the most courageous filmmakers of our time. Winner of the Palme d’Or at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, the film is a tense, darkly humorous thriller about Vahid, a mechanic who believes he has reencountered Eghbal, the intelligence officer who once tortured him. As Vahid gathers others whose lives were also scarred by Eghbal, a dangerous plan for revenge takes shape. Panahi crafts a powerful meditation on justice, morality, and resistance under repression. A NEON release and a NYFF63 Main Slate selection. POST SCREENING PANEL DISCUSSION Our distinguished panel will discuss IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT in the context of Iranian cinema, political expression, and the role of art as resistance under authoritarian rule. ALI BANUAZIZI, Ph.D. Research Professor of Political Science at Boston College and Faculty Affiliate at the Center for International Studies at M.I.T. Ali Banuazizi’s research focuses on the political cultures of the Middle East and the comparative study of religion, civil society, and politics. His work includes Iran’s social history and its contemporary domestic and foreign relations. A past president of both the Middle East Studies Association and the International Society for Iranian Studies, he has held visiting appointments at Princeton, Harvard, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, MIT, and Oxford University. RASHIN FAHANDEJ Multimedia Artist and Filmmaker; Research Fellow, MIT Open Documentary Lab Rashin Fahandej’s multimedia projects center on marginalized voices and the use of media and technology for social change. Her multi-platform project A Father’s Lullaby explores the role of men in raising children and the impact of racial disparities in the criminal justice system. A 2019 James and Audrey Foster Prize recipient, she has been a Boston Artist-in-Residence and a visiting faculty member at MassArt. She is also a recipient of the Mass Cultural Council Artist Fellowship Grant. KAMRAN RASTEGAR, Ph.D. Professor of Comparative Literature, Tufts University Kamran Rastegar’s scholarship focuses on modern Middle Eastern literature and film, with attention to representation, cultural memory, and transnational identity. He is a founding faculty member of the Department for Studies in Race, Colonialism and Diaspora and an affiliate of the Film and Media Studies Program. He served as Director of the Center for the Humanities at Tufts from 2018 to 2022. His work bridges cultural studies and the political dimensions of art in the Middle East.

West Newton Cinema

West Newton Cinema Foundation

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Behind the Screen: It Was Just an Accident

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