Cannes President and actor Juliette Binoche opened up about the jury’s decision to award Palme d’Or to Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi’s ‘It was just an Accident’ at the global film festival on Saturday, reported Deadline.

Jury President Juliette Binoche lauded the creative decision of the team to honour the film. She called it a movie with a feeling of “resistance” and “survival”, which she calls necessary in today’s life.

“The film springs from a feeling of resistance, survival, which is absolutely necessary today. It’s very human and political at the same time, because he comes from a complicated country. When we watched the film, it stood out,” said Binocher as quoted by Deadline.

As per the outlet, Panahi was previously in Competition in 2018 with 3 Faces, won the Camera d’Or for his first film The White Balloon in 1995 and won a Jury Prize in Un Certain Regard for Crimson Gold in 2003.

The filmmaker had two unjustified stints in prison in Iran; Panahi getting released in 2023.

While recalling the prison history of the director, Binoche called the film a celebration of “art” and “human” desire to win.

“It was exciting to celebrate (him). Art will always win. What is human will always win. As actors, directors and people who work in art, we can speak out in public on important issues and transform the world,” said Binche as quoted by Deadline.

“We are in a world ruled by revenge, violence, and this film for someone who has had this experience of violence in his life, the fact that one can talk about this change within the film, this change which is not revenge, the idea is you can listen and not necessarily want to kill someone or rough them up. The film holds out huge hope and we were fortunate to have this movie in competition. So, we can talk about these matters. You have to have a paradigm shift of looking at things. We’re in the mud of violence, in the sludge of what is human...” added Binoche as quoted by Deadline.

In addition to Binoche, this year’s majority-female jury included Italian actress Alba Rohrwacher, Indian filmmaker Payal Kapadia, French-Moroccan writer Leila Slimani, American stars Halle Berry and Jeremy Strong, South Korean auteur Hong Sangsoo, Mexican director Carlos Reygadas and Congolese filmmaker Dieudo Hamadi.

 Source: The Hollywood Reporter