It’s official - Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or winner, It Was Just An Accident, is this year’s opening night film.

Filmed in secret in Iran, It Was Just An Accident is a road movie revenge thriller featuring biting black humour, borderline absurd happenings, and vividly shifting viewpoints from a van-load of ex-prisoners. At the same time, it looks at bigger questions around morality, justice, unhealed trauma and the impact of the Iranian regime.

And strikingly, there’s an air of the autobiographical for acclaimed director Jafar Panahi, once imprisoned himself and finally free from a filmmaking ban imposed by Iranian authorities. With It Was Just An Accident, Panahi tempers the anger with irony, and ultimately, he shows us that we can stay human only by seeking justice and truth rather than vengeance.

"Jafar Panahi's film is cinema at its boldest. It challenges the notion of revenge through compassion. It is the kind of cinema that stays with you. I am excited that New Zealand audiences will be among the first in the world to see it!" - Paolo Bertolin, NZIFF Artistic Director.