It Was Just An Accident (2025)

This was submitted to the Academy for consideration for ‘Best International Feature Film’ by Tunisia, it is a film by an Iranian filmmaker about the repressive and violent Iranian regime. The movie opens with a couple and their child travelling home. They run over a dog, and while the child is very sorrowful about it, the parents shrug and say, “It was just an accident.” Several miles after the impact, their car breaks down outside a modest factory. An employee offers to fix their car while his co-worker Vahid (Vahid Mobasseri) talks on the phone in a backroom. Before he sees the driver, Vahid hears the shuffle and squeak of a prosthetic leg. His genial visage fades, and he sneaks around the corner to get a better look. From his vantage point, we only see the driver’s legs as he looks for a toolbox. When he asks for help, Vahid, hiding in another room, hooks his finger into his cheek to change his voice. Vahid believes this man is Eghbal, a former intelligence officer who tortured him years ago in prison. Vahid decides to act. He tracks the driver to a repair shop, hits him with his car, abducts him from the street, and drives out to the desert, where he digs a hole with the intent of burying him alive. When the man protests that he can’t be Peg Leg because his scars are recent, doubt creeps into Vahid’s mind. Does he actually have the right man? So, with Peg Leg in tow, he seeks out the opinions of others who he was imprisoned with, and that is the gist of the movie—the psychological damage inflicted cruelly and permanently by the torturer is explored in a surprisingly light hearted manner. I was dreading watching this, but very much enjoyed it.