In Jafar Panahi’s Cannes-winning It Was Just An Accident, the tortured become the torturers

It Was Just An Accident (PG13)

103 minutes ★★★★☆

There is just one screening left of one of 2025’s best films, a work filled with bitter jokes about Iran’s theocratic regime and the horrific logic that motivates it – nothing we can do to a prisoner is evil; how could it be, with God on our side?

It begins with Vahid (Vahid Mobasseri), a mechanic and former prisoner, who sees a man he suspects is a notorious interrogator who tortured him and many others. He gathers a group of former inmates.

The problem: They were blindfolded during interrogations, so how are they to confirm his identity as their torturer? How much pain should they inflict to make him confess? Should their cruelty match his? Will his murder stop him from appearing in their nightmares?

Their arguments illuminate the complicated moral dimensions of their mission, now that the tortured can choose to be torturers.

Dissident Iranian film-maker Jafar Panahi, himself a former prisoner of the regime, showcases the exhaustion of those living in a society riddled with corruption – the vengeance seekers find themselves unable to perform the most trivial tasks without first greasing the palm of an official, the result of years of morality policing carried out at the expense of improving the lives of citizens.

The film, winner of the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival 2025, is one of Panahi’s fiercest attacks on the Iranian government and also one of his most thoughtful, blackly funny stories.

For the 2026 Golden Globes, It Was Just An Accident was the first Iranian film to be nominated for Best Motion Picture – Drama, Best Director and Best Screenplay. It was also nominated for Best Foreign Language Film and selected as the French entry for Best International Feature Film at the 2026 Academy Awards.

The film screens on Dec 20, 3pm at Alliance Francaise Singapour, 1 Sarkies Road. Tickets are priced at $14.50 (Alliance Francaise members) and $16 (non-members) and are available at

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Born To Be Wild

Showing on Apple TV

Cuteness overload alert. This miniseries showcases six baby animals as they take their adorable selves into the wild.

Two – a moon bear cub and an elephant calf – are orphans raised by human caretakers. The rest – a penguin chick, a lemur pup, two cheetah cubs and a lynx kitten – have varying levels of human contact. The cheetahs are being relocated to a new reserve in Africa, while the lynx has to show that it can adapt to the wild after its birth at a Spanish breeding centre.

The series features close-ups of the baby animals, with an emphasis on the human-animal relationship and the role that conservationists play in the survival of the species.

Some reviewers have noted that the easy-to-consume episodes, each 30 to 45 minutes in duration, stand in contrast to the BBC’s nature documentaries, which tend to run longer and place animals up front, rather than their relationships with humans.

This Apple TV offering, narrated by English actor Hugh Bonneville, is aimed at those who prefer their animal documentaries crisp and easy on the eyes.

City Of Shadows (M18)

Showing on Netflix

The selling point of this Spanish serial-killer miniseries is that it is set in Barcelona. Those familiar with its landmarks and the work of its most famous architect, Antoni Gaudi (1852 to 1926), will find it a visual feast.

From its opening scene, in which the chief executive of one of Catalan’s biggest corporations is burned alive and hung from the balcony of Gaudi’s Casa Milia, it is clear that the city’s heritage is as important as any of its characters.

Fans of crime thrillers like Britain’s Dept Q (2025 to present) will find a familiar template.

Milo Malart (Isak Ferriz) is a cop haunted by bad memories. His partner Rebeca Garrido (Veronica Echegui) has to deal with his psychological torment, but admires his analytical skills.

As they uncover more details about the crime, they find that they are dealing with a sadist who has a taste for theatrics and history – each killing leaves clues, decipherable by those literate in Gaudi, Greek mythology and secret societies.