It Was Just an Accident

It Was Just an Accident (Un simple accident, 2025) is an Iranian-French thriller by Jafar Panahi you can watch online on iFILM. Mechanic Vahid (Vahid Mobasseri) keeps his head down and his past locked away — until a family's car breaks down at his garage and the squeak of a prosthetic leg makes everything come back.

Vahid is certain he knows this man: a guard who brutalised prisoners, himself included. He plans a kidnapping — controlled, deliberate. But doubt creeps in. The longer he watches his target, the less sure he becomes. Mariam Afshari plays Shiva, Vahid's increasingly unsteady accomplice. In 101 minutes Panahi turns one question — is this really him? — into a tightly wound argument about memory, justice, and the cost of acting on a grudge that may be misplaced.

Panahi shot the film without government permits, as he has done for years under the Iranian regime's restrictions. The world premiere was at the 2025 Berlin Film Festival; the film screened at TIFF 2025 and the 63rd New York Film Festival. Watch It Was Just an Accident (2025) in full online on iFILM.