When this happens inside Hollywood’s Dolby Theatre on Sunday, 3.15.26, it will be the second time that a political/cultural sympathy vote has bestowed a major honor upon Jafar Panahi’s latest film, the first time occuring at the close of last May’s Cannes Film Festival when it won the Palme d’Or.
Joachim Trier‘s Sentimental Value, obviously the best film of the 2025 festival, therefore lost to It Was Just An Accident and had to settle for a Grand Prix award (i.e., second prize). If I know anything about the Academy, Value will once again get elbowed aside because of Panahi’s just-announced one-year jail sentence.
