Tuesday, October 7, 2025 at 7:00 PM
Aero Theatre, Santa Monica
### **ABOUT THE FILMS:** **IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT, 2025, Dir. Jafar Panahi, 105 Mins, NEON, Iran/France/Luxembourg** *In Persian with English subtitles.* Vahid, an unassuming mechanic, has a chance encounter with Eghbal, a man he strongly suspects to be his former sadistic jailhouse captor. Panicked, Vahid gathers several former prisoners, all abused by that same captor, to try and confirm Eghbal’s identity. As the bickering group drives around Tehran with the captive, they must confront how far to take matters into their own hands with their presumed tormentor. From master filmmaker Jafar Panahi comes a searing moral thriller that engages with complex ideas about the uncertainty of the truth and the choice between revenge and mercy, as Panahi turns his personal dissonance into a profound and galvanizing work of art. FORMAT: DCP **CRIMSON GOLD, 2003, Dir. Jafar Panahi, 85 Mins, KimStim, Iran** *In Persian with English subtitles.* Jafar Panahi’s CRIMSON GOLD (written by Abbas Kiarostami) is a stark, unforgettable portrait of class and despair in contemporary Tehran. Hussein, a wounded war veteran turned pizza delivery driver, navigates the city’s stark economic divide on his nightly rounds. Humiliated and excluded from the world of privilege, he is drawn toward an irreversible act of rebellion when a jewelry shop owner bars him from entering. Hailed as an Iranian TAXI DRIVER, Panahi’s neorealist slow-burn crafts a quiet but devastating critique of systemic inequality. FORMAT: DCP