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Neon’s latest Cannes Film Festival Palme d’Or winner, It Was Just An Accident from Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi will open October 15 in theaters in North America, setting the film up for an awards campaign in categories including Best Picture, Director, Original Screenplay and International Film. The latter, however, might be in question as it seems unlikely that Panahi’s film, which is critical of Iran’s government and treatment of its citizens, would be selected by the country as its official Oscar entry for the International Feature Film competition.

Following the pattern Neon head Tom Quinn explained to me for Deadline’s Cannes Disruptors issue in May, this film, which marks the sixth consecutive Palme d’Or win for Neon, will follow what he openly calls his “playbook” and emulate the release pattern employed for the company’s past two Palme d’Or/Oscar Best Picture winners, 2024’s Anora and 2019’s Parasite.

Neon has set an October 15 awards corridor North American release for Jafar Panahi’s Palme D’Or winner It Was Just An Accident.

The company, which five years ago shepherded Parasite from its Palme D’Or win to the best picture Oscar, is planning an awards push for Panahi’s film in categories including best picture, director, original screenplay and international film.

Neon acquired North American rights to It Was Just An Accident at Cannes, a few days before the acclaimed drama won the festival’s top prize. The Cannes award made the film, which has since won the Sydney...

Jafar Panahi’s Cannes winner “It Was Just an Accident” will be released in theaters this fall. Neon has dated the movie for theatrical release on Oct. 15.

The film marks the Iranian auteur’s first feature since being released from prison in Iran and was directly inspired by his incarceration. “It Was Just An Accident” follows what begins as a minor accident, which sets in motion a series of escalating consequences. The story centers on five characters who think they’ve identified the prosecutor who tortured them during their own arrests — but as they were all blindfolded in jail, none can be entirely certain their captive is the same man.

“When you spend eight hours a day blindfolded, seated in front of a wall, being interrogated by someone standing behind your back every day, you can’t stop wondering what kind of conversation you can have with this man,” Panahi...

Neon has set an October 15 awards corridor North American release for Jafar Panahi’s Palme D’Or winner It Was Just An Accident.

The company, which five years ago shepherded Parasite from its Palme D’Or win to the best picture Oscar, is planning an awards push for Panahi’s film in categories including best picture, director, original screenplay and international film.

Neon acquired North American rights to It Was Just An Accident at Cannes, a few days before the acclaimed drama won the festival’s top prize. The Cannes award made the film, which has since won the Sydney...

This is no accident … you’ll soon be able to see 2025 Palme d’Or winner “It Was Just an Accident” in theaters on Oct. 15.

Neon picked up Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi’s latest movie — “یک تصادف ساده,” — out of the Cannes Film Festival last month, marking their sixth consecutive acquisition of the French event’s top film.

“Inspired by Panahi’s second Iranian incarceration, ‘It Was Just an Accident’ follows what begins as a minor accident as it sets in motion a series of escalating consequences,” according to Neon’s Wednesday press release.

Panahi spent almost 20 years in prison or under house arrest in Iran for making films that the country deemed to be anti-government propaganda. After winning the Caméra d’Or in 1995 for “The White Balloon,” the director was able to attend Cannes this year despite a 20-year ban on making movies in 2010 and an additional prison sentence in...

Neon has acquired North American distribution rights to Jafar Panahi’s Cannes Competition title It Was Just An Accident from mk2 Films,with Mubi taking rights to multiple international territories.

Mubi has bought the film for UK-Ireland, Germany, Latin America, Austria, Turkey and India.

It Was Just An Accident is Iranian auteur Panahi’s first film since his release from prison in Iran in February 2023 after seven months’ incarceration.

Inspired by his time in prison, the film follows a man, his heavily pregnant wife and their young daughter, as they get in a minor car accident and the chain of...

Neon has acquired the North American rights to Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi’s It Was Just An Accident, which premiered In competition at Cannes on Tuesday.

The film marks Panahi’s first since being released from prison in Iran, and was inspired in part by his second incarceration in that country. Neon, which also released Panahi’s The Year of the Everlasting Storm, plans a North American theatrical release for his latest work in 2025.

It Was Just An Accident stars Mariam Afshari, Ebrahim Azizi, and Vahid Mobasser, and focuses on a minor accident that sets in motion a series of escalating consequences that in turn illustrate the traumas suffered by political dissidents and other opponents of power.

The Golden Bear and Golden Lion winner this year brought to Cannes his first movie not to have been shot illegally since 2006 after his decades-long filmmaking and travel ban was finally lifted by the Iranian authorities,...

Neon has taken North American rights on revered Iranian auteur Jafar Panahi’s Cannes competition title “It Was Just an Accident,” which marks Panahi’s first film since being released from prison in Iran.

The film, starring Mariam Afshari, Ebrahim Azizi, and Vahid Mobasser, was greeted with a long standing ovation and is a Cannes standout title.

“It Was Just an Accident” centers around an outpouring of strong feelings by a group of former prisoners toward a torturous guard.

“When you spend eight hours a day blindfolded, seated in front of a wall, being interrogated by someone standing behind your back every day, you can’t stop wondering what kind of conversation you can have with this man,” Panahi told Variety in one of his first interviews following his 14-year ban on making movies, speaking to the press and traveling.

The film is produced by Jafar Panahi and Philippe Martin...

Exclusive: Neon has picked up North American rights to Jafar Panahi’s well-received feature It Was Just an Accident, which had its world premiere in Competition at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this week.

It Was Just an Accident has a one-line synopsis that reads: “What begins as a minor accident sets in motion a series of escalating consequences.” The film, which has been one of the best-reviewed movies at the festival, deals in a fictional way with past wrongfully incarcerated working-class people seeking revenge against the guard who tortured and berated them. In his review, Deadline’s Pete Hammond called the movie “a powerful statement for humanity” that “serves as a warning that you better watch your back.”

The Wednesday afternoon screening was met with a 10-minute ovation — and was highly significant because Panahi himself was in attendance, marking the first time he has been able to appear at the festival in over 20 years.

French crime films of the 1950s and ’60s often centered on professional criminals who followed codes of honor that put them on a more-or-less level moral playing field with the detectives tracking them down. Whether it was Jean Gabin’s aging gangster Max in Jacques Becker’s Touchez Pas au Grisbi or Alain Delon’s steely eyed assassin Jef in Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le Samouraï, these men had a sophistication and moral grounding that minimized the violence and chaos they caused. They were dangerous, even deadly, but only when they needed to be and in a way the cops could wrap their heads’ around.

Fun City Editions’s new Blu-ray set, Seeing Red: 3 French Vigilante Thrillers, consists of a trio of films that play like French twists on the hyper-violent Italian poliziotteschi crime films that reached the height of their popularity in the ’70s. In Jean-Claude Missiaen’s Shot Pattern,...

James Schamus to deliver keynote address at the Fleadh Forum.

The full programme for the 31st Galway Film Fleadh has been unveiled, with Sophie Hyde’s Animals and French actress Sandrine Dumas’ directorial debut Sing Me Back Home among the latest additions to the programme.

Sing Me Back Home, about a young woman’s relationship with her grandmother, will open the Fleadh on July 9.

Ivan Kavanagh’s Never Grow Old, a dark western about an Irish undertaker on the American frontier, starring Emile Hirsch and John Cusack, will close the festival on July 14.

Of the 84 new local and international features,...

James Schamus to deliver keynote address at the Fleadh Forum.

The full programme for the 31st Galway Film Fleadh has been unveiled, with Sophie Hyde’s Animals and French actress Sandrine Dumas’ directorial debut Sing Me Back Home among the latest additions to the programme.

Sing Me Back Home, about a young woman’s relationship with her grandmother, will open the Fleadh on July 9.

Ivan Kavanagh’s Never Grow Old, a dark western about an Irish undertaker on the American frontier, starring Emile Hirsch and John Cusack, will close the festival on July 14.

Of the 95 local and international feature films...

"If I were you, I wouldn't torture myself." Sundance Selects + IFC Films have released an official Us trailer for the latest film from French filmmaker extraordinaire Claire Denis, titled Let the Sunshine In, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival last year. Also titled Un beau soleil intérieur in French, the film stars Juliette Binoche as a middle aged, confident French woman dealing with a variety of unsuitable suitors in this romantic comedy. She meets a number of different men, each who have their own perks and quirks, and downsides as she figures out what romance means to her at this point in her life. The cast includes Xavier Beauvois, Philippe Katerine, Josiane Balasko, Sandrine Dumas, Nicolas Duvauchelle, and Alex Descas. This is a fun film with some fine French humor, but definitely not one of Claire Denis' best. Enjoy. Here's the official Us trailer (+ French poster) for Claire Denis' Let the Sunshine In,...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSThe luminously thoughtful French actress Anne Wiazemsky, indelible for her starring roles in Robert Bresson's Au hasard Balthazar, Jean-Luc Godard's Le chinoise, Pier Paolo Pasolini's Teorema and Porcile, and Philippe Garrel's L'enfant secret, has died at the age of 70. Part of her memoir Un an après has been adapted in the controversial film Redoubtable, which premiered at Cannes this year.Significant writings concerning Miramax and The Weinstein Company co-founder Harvey Weinstein's sexual abuse are appearing far and wide: Ronan Farrow for The New Yorker, Jodi Kantor & Rachel Abrams for The New York Times, Heather Graham for Variety, and Naveen Kumar for Vice. Recommended VIEWINGUploaded five months ago and undiscovered until now: Neil Bahadur has found the first trailer for Alan Rudolph's first film in 15 years, Ray Meets Helen.

Director Ermanno Olmi’s The Legend Of The Holy Drinker (1988) Starring Rutger Hauer will be available on Blu-ray from Arrow Academy September 26th

Winner of the prestigious Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival, The Legend Of The Holy DRINKERr is another classic from the great Italian director Ermanno Olmi (Il posto, The Tree of Wooden Clogs).

Adapted from the novella by Joseph Roth, the film tells the story of Andreas Kartack, a homeless man living under the bridges of Paris. Lent 200 francs by an anonymous stranger, he is determined to pay back his debt but circumstances – and his alcoholism – forever intervene.

Working with professional actors for the first time in more than 20 years, Olmi cast Ruger Hauer as Andreas and was rewarded with an astonishing performance of subtlety and depth. Hauer is joined by a superb supporting cast, including Anthony Quayle (Lawrence of Arabia), Sandrine Dumas (The Double Life of Veronique...