Dissident Iranian director Jafar Panahi has gained the Palme d’Or for greatest movie for It Was Simply an Accident on the 78th Cannes worldwide movie pageant.
Panahi, who just some years in the past was imprisoned in Tehran and below a 20-year journey and work ban, returned triumphantly to Cannes, accepting his award from jury president (and vocal Panahi fan) Juliette Binoche.
Panahi’s movie, his first since being launched from jail in 2023, is a direct assault on Iran’s authoritarian regime. The thriller follows a former political prisoner who kidnaps a person he believes to be his torturer after which debates with different dissidents whether or not to kill or forgive him.
The win marks the sixth time in a row a movie acquired by Neon for North America has gained the Palme d’Or. Tom Quinn’s indie outfit saved its Cannes streak going by choosing up It Was Simply an Accident earlier this week.
Along with his Cannes win, Jafar Panahi has now accomplished the uncommon pageant triple crown, successful the highest prize in any respect three main European movie festivals, following his Golden Lion win in Venice for The Circle (2000) and Berlin’s Golden Bear for Taxi (2015). Panahi is barely the fourth director — after Henri-Georges Clouzot, Michelangelo Antonioni and Robert Altman — to win the massive three.
The 2025 Cannes jury included actors Halle Berry, Jeremy Sturdy and Italy’s Alba Rohrwacher; administrators Dieudo Hamadi, Hong Sang-soo, Payal Kapadia and Carlos Reygadas; and French-Moroccan author Leïla Slimani.
The pageant bought its personal dramatic twist ending early on Saturday when a regional energy outage shut down {the electrical} grid serving Cannes and far of the encompassing area. The outage, apparently attributable to deliberate sabotage on {the electrical} infrastructure, disrupted early morning screenings and compelled resorts, retailers and cafes within the metropolis to shut.
However the pageant was largely unaffected. The Palais, the place the closing ceremony is held, switched to emergency energy and carried on a lot as earlier than.
Cannes had a very robust lineup this yr, with no single movie the general frontrunner going into the awards.
Binoche started the ceremony by bestowing a particular prize on Chinese language director Bi Gan for Resurrection. Rohrwacher gave the Digital camera d’Or trophy for first function to The President’s Cake director Hasan Hadi, who’s the primary Iraqi director to win a prize in Cannes.
John C. Reilly, in Cannes for the Un Sure Regard movie Heads or Tails?, added a musical contact to the ceremony, breaking out into an English-language rendition of “La Vie en Rose” when presenting greatest screenplay prize to two-time Palme d’Or winners Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne for the Belgian social drama Younger Moms.
Brazilian actor Wagner Moura took greatest actor for his starring function in The Secret Agent, Kleber Mendonça Filho’s Seventies-set Brazilian political thriller. In a uncommon double award, Filho additionally took greatest director for the function.
Newcomer Nadia Melliti beat out Jennifer Lawrence’s flip in Lynne Ramsay’s Die, My Love to take the very best actress honor, taking part in the lead function in Hafsia Herzi’s Muslim lesbian coming-of-age story The Little Sister.
German director Mascha Schilinski gained the Jury Prize for Sound of Falling, solely her second movie, an epic household drama set throughout 4 generations in the identical rural farmhouse. She shared the glory with Spanish director Oliver Laxe for Sirat, a techno-infused apocalyptic drama set within the Moroccan desert.
A full listing of winners follows:
Palme d’Or
Jafar Panahi for It Was Simply an Accident
Grand Prix
Joachim Trier for Sentimental Worth
Jury Prize
Mascha Schilinski for Sound of Falling and Oliver Laxe for Sirat (tie)
Finest Director
Kleber Mendonça Filho for The Secret Agent
Finest Screenplay
Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne for Younger Moms
Finest Actress
Nadia Melliti for The Little Sister
Finest Actor
Wagner Moura for The Secret Agent
Particular Prize
Resurrection, dir. Bi Gan
Digital camera d’Or for Finest First Movie
The President’s Cake, dir: Hassan Hadi
Palme d’Or for Finest Brief Movie
I’m Glad You’re Useless Now, dir: Tawfeek Barhom
Finest Brief Movie Particular Point out
Ali, dir. Adnan Al Rajeev
Un Sure Regard
Un Sure Regard Prize
The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo, dir. Diego Céspedes
Jury Prize
A Poet, dir. Simón Mesa Soto
Finest Director
As soon as Upon a Time in Gaza, dir. Arab & Tarzan Nasser
Finest Screenplay
Pillion, dir. Harry Lighton
Finest Actress
I Solely Relaxation within the Storm, dir. Pedro Pinho
Finest Actor
Frank Dillane in Urchin, dir. Harris Dickinson
Caméra d’Or for greatest first movie
The President’s Cake, dir. Hassan Hadi
Particular Point out
My Father’s Shadow, dir. Akinola Davies Jr
La Cinef
First Prize
First Summer season, dir. Heo Gayoung (KAFA, South Korea)
Second Prize
12 Moments Earlier than the Flag-Elevating Ceremony, dir. Qu Zhizheng (Beijing Movie Academy, China)
Third Prize
Ginger Boy, dir. Miki Tanaka (ENBU Seminar, Japan); Winter in March, dir. Natalia Mirzoyan (Estonian Academy of Arts, Estonia) (Tie)
The Larger Technical Fee for Sound and Photographs
CST Award for Finest Younger Feminine Technician
Éponine Momenceau, director of images for Connemara, dir. Alex Lutz
CST Artist-Technician Award
Ruben Impens, Director of Images, and Stéphane Thiébaut, Sound Mixer, for Alpha, dir. Julia Ducournau