For more than two decades, the famous Iranian director Jafar Panahi spoke in the media for the first time at the Cannes Film Festival, not as a house in Tehran, but as a freeman. At the press conference of his game movie This is just an accidentPanahi reflects his long-awaited return to the hybrid, and the weight of representing those who remain silent in Iran.

This year's Cannes Film Festival is Panahi's first debut since 2003 Crimson gold Winning a certain award.

Panahi won't be able to travel until recently after February 2023. The 2010 conviction prevented him from traveling and filming and was overthrown. Suddenly, Panahi could work and move as he wished.

"It took me some time to get back on my feet and get back to work," Panashi said. "This movie (This is just an accident) is the result. ”

This is just an accident It is one of his most direct works to date. The film was filmed in secret in Iran and filmed in an unveiled female character that violates the country’s hijacking laws, following a group of former state prisoners who debate whether to take revenge on the men who torture them.

"I'm not the one who made this movie in a sense. It was the Islamic Republic that made this movie because they sent me to jail." thr In a long-term interview before the film premiered. “Maybe once they’ve finished watching this movie, they realize they shouldn’t put artists in jail… Maybe if they want to stop us from being so subverted, they should stop putting us in jail.”

Panahi said in a press conference that his films were “always inspired by the environment I found myself in”, before jail, his environment was Iranian society, but “once you are sent to jail, it is inevitable that it will be affected and influenced by what you observe and see.”

Mariam Afshari, one of the movie’s stars, said the movie was “a way to show us what we are going through, a struggle.”

The film’s naturalistic style and quiet tension are reminiscent of Panahi’s early works – including circle and Offside - Contrary to the more self-reflective, constrained projects he did when he formally banned his work, e.g. This is not a movie and taxi. But while it evaded the public autobiography, its themes of incarceration, trauma and resistance resonate deeply with the director's personal history.

Panahi recalls being locked in a bad situation in a 5 x 8-foot cell, "I had little room to lie down or walk around. To go to the bathroom, I had to ring a bell," he said. "I'm allowed to go to the bathroom 2-3 times a day. To leave my cell, I have to blindfold my eyes. Only in the toilet can you remove the blindfold."

Panahi said he was often interrogated every day during his imprisonment, often for eight hours a day. “Once, it was time to pray, my interrogator went out and prayed, and then returned to the interrogation.”

But Panashi said many others suffered more. He noted that his co-screen author has been sent back to prison. "The Iranians have been imprisoned for the past 40 years," he noted.

Despite fighting decades of censorship, abuse and formal bans, Panashi said he never thought of giving up.

"In my 20-year ban, even my closest friend gave up on the hope that I would make a movie again," Panashi said. "But I looked for a solution, and I said to myself, I don't know what to do...I can't replace the light bulb, I can't work the screwdriver. I don't know what to do except make a movie."

Just like the movie he shot in the official ban This is just an accident It was made secretly without the approval of the Iranian regime.

The film sparked a crazi reception on Tuesday's premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, with eight minutes of standing ovation, with little dry eyes in the house. Panahi delivered a moving speech paying tribute to many Iranian directors, actors and activists, but remained imprisoned or banned from work after women’s freedom protests.

Regardless of the Iranian regime's reaction to his new film, he said he intends to continue fighting.

He said: "I act like other Iranians, I'm not anything. Iranian women are forbidden from going out, but they still do it, but they still do it, but they don't do anything more heroic. Once I'm done here, I'll go back to Iran and the next day, I'll ask me what my next movie is."