Iran's Foreign Ministry on Sunday summoned the French embassy's chargé d'affaires to protest the remarks made by France's foreign minister in reaction to Iranian dissident filmmaker Jafar Panahi's win at the Cannes Film Festival.
The award for his film It Was Just an Accident, hailed as a milestone for Iranian cinema and a symbolic victory for freedom of expression, also sparked harsh criticism from pro-government media in Iran.
Panahi, a former political prisoner banned from travel and filmmaking for over a decade, received a standing ovation at the award ceremony.
The Palme d'Or was presented by acclaimed actress Cate Blanchett on Saturday night. In his acceptance speech, Panahi struck a unifying tone, calling on Iranians inside and outside the country to "set aside our differences" and work collectively toward democracy, dignity and human rights.
“Let no one tell us what to wear, what to do or what films to make,” he said, drawing repeated applause from the audience.
The moment was described by French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot as a "symbolic act of resistance" against repression. “Jafar Panahi’s Palme d’Or revives hope for freedom fighters around the world,” Barrot wrote on X.
A national and global moment
The win drew emotional reactions from across Iranian political and artistic figures at home and abroad.
Nobel Peace Laureate Narges Mohammadi, writing from inside Iran, described Panahi as a “brave and distinguished director” whose recognition was the result of years of relentless effort to deepen human and civil values through art.
Prince Reza Pahlavi, the exiled heir to Iran’s former monarchy, congratulated Panahi and called the award a “great honor for Iran.” He expressed hope that Iranian filmmakers could one day work “without censorship or restriction” in their homeland.
Iranian activist Hamed Esmaeilion called Panahi a “true hero,” praising his resilience in the face of censorship and repression. “His courage inspires all who fight for justice and freedom,” he said.
Political prisoner Mehdi Mahmoudian, speaking from Tehran’s Evin Prison, said the award was “not just a cinematic honor, but a victory of truth over censorship.”
Iranian-British actress Nazanin Boniadi also praised Panahi’s speech, calling him a “unifying voice” at a time when Iranians are searching for solidarity and vision.
The wave of celebration was echoed by 135 civil, political, and cultural activists, who issued a joint statement lauding Panahi as a symbol of artistic integrity and human rights advocacy.
The statement said that Panahi had joined a rare class of filmmakers alongside legends like Michelangelo Antonioni and Robert Altman—to win all three major European film prizes: the Golden Bear (Berlin), Golden Lion (Venice), and now the Palme d’Or (Cannes).
Film made in defiance
It Was Just an Accident, a political thriller, was shot clandestinely in Iran without government authorization and in open defiance of mandatory hijab laws.
The film’s production and Panahi’s public defiance of censorship laws have drawn admiration from international film communities and rights groups.
The Cannes jury also awarded Panahi the Festival’s Citizenship Prize, recognizing his broader contributions to freedom of expression.
An increasing number of Iranian filmmakers are defying the country's strict ideological censorship by making movies without seeking the Culture Ministry's permission for screening abroad.
Last year, prominent Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi said he will not produce any films in Iran until the ban on showing women without headscarves is lifted, as people demand.
Official backlash in Tehran
Inside Iran, however, the award was met with either silence or anger from state-linked outlets.
The conservative daily Farhikhtegan, affiliated with Islamic Azad University, dismissed the honor with the headline: “Palme d’Or Turns to Rust”.
The editorial accused European film festivals of orientalist bias and suggested that Panahi’s acclaim was driven by political motives rather than artistic merit.
The Student News Agency (SNN) went further, branding Panahi a “middleman” and “Iran-seller.” It called the ceremony a “political show” orchestrated by “PR marketers.”
Despite the criticism, Panahi’s victory has reignited conversations around freedom of expression, artistic resistance, and national unity among Iranians worldwide.
As he left the stage in Cannes, Panahi expressed a simple hope: “I dream of an Iran where artists are not silenced, where truth has no borders, and where no one lives in fear for telling a story.”
Mohsen Langarneshin, a 32-year-old network security engineer, was executed in Ghezel Hesar Prison on April 30 on charges of “waging war against God” and “spreading corruption on Earth,” according to the judiciary’s media outlet Mizan.
Beyond vague headlines in state-controlled outlets, few details of his background and case were publicly available. But rights activist Ryma Sheermohammadi and sources close to Langarneshin told Iran International that the case was fabricated, his trial deeply flawed and confessions he made were extracted under torture.
Iranian authorities were so keen to round up suspects amid serial Israeli intelligence breaches, Sheermohammadi said, that they accused him of being involved in the death of a top missile general they have publicly insisted died by accident.
“This case was manufactured,” Sheermohammadisaid. “He was executed on charges of espionage without a shred of material evidence. The case was built entirely on forced confessions extracted under extreme physical and psychological torture.”
“Mohsen was an easy target for them. They tortured him to gain confessions out of him and he didn’t even tell anyone and fell for their lies that they would spare his life if he complied,” a source close to Langarneshin told Iran International.
Accidental blast
According to Sheermohammadi, Langarneshin was accused of involvement in three high-profile incidents: the 2011 explosion that killed the architect of Iran’s missile program Brigadier General Hassan Tehrani Moghaddam, the 2022 assassination of Colonel Hassan Sayyad Khodaei in Tehran and a 2023 bombing at a munitions factory in Isfahan.
Tehrani Moghaddam, a brigadier general in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), played a central role in developing Iran’s long-range missile arsenal and was widely regarded as the father of Iran’s missile program.
In 2011, he died alongside over a dozen others in a blast west of Tehran - a huge blow to Iran's military establishment but one officials conceded was an accidental detonation during weapons testing.
“At the time (of Tehrani Moghaddam's death), Mohsen was just 19 years old and had no known link to the incident,” Sheermohammadi said.
Sheermohammadi also dismissed allegations tying Langarneshin to the 2022 assassination of Quds Force officer Sayyad Khodaei.
“In the 2022 assassination of Colonel Sayyad Khodaei, Mohsen was accused of conducting surveillance using a motorcycle,” she said. “But he was living in Isfahan at the time, not Tehran, and there is extensive documentation — CCTV footage, phone records, vehicle ownership — proving his absence from the crime scene.”
Langarneshin was also accused of being involved in a 2023 bombing in Isfahan. “But Mohsen had already moved to Tehran well before the incident,” she said. “Again, workplace footage and telecom records confirm this. Another individual was arrested and executed for that very bombing, which raises serious questions about duplicated or fabricated charges.”
Langarneshin had previously worked under contract as a network security engineer at Imam Hossein University, a US-designated military-linked institution controlled by the IRGC that trains specialists in cyber defense, intelligence and missile technology.
“Mohsen had a brief professional association with Imam Hossein University — an IRGC-affiliated institution,” Sheermohammadi said. “That link gave intelligence agencies just enough of a pretext to cast suspicion on him, years later.”
But she said his affiliation ended after 2019 protests which started over fuel price hikes but quickly turned political. They were quashed by authorities with deadly force.
“Mohsen made a principled decision to resign from the university following the bloody crackdown on protesters in November 2019,” she said. “He could no longer, in good conscience, be affiliated with institutions tied to state violence. That act of integrity may have marked him as politically unreliable in the eyes of the regime.”
Sheermohammadi believes Langarneshin was ultimately targeted not for what he did, but his profile fit what investigators were seeking in a defendant.
“The intelligence services were under pressure to deliver ‘results,’ especially in cases involving alleged foreign plots,” she said.
“Mohsen’s international travel history, financial independence through his car business, and technical expertise all made him an easy target — someone who could be cast into a ready-made narrative of espionage, even when the evidence said otherwise.”
Call from Evin Prison
In a recorded phone call from Evin Prison, a copy of which was obtained by Iran International, Langarneshin described being psychologically tortured in a Ministry of Intelligence safehouse the night of his arrest.
His captors, he said, threatened him with flogging, forced him to write false confessions and later filmed him admitting to his alleged crimes based on their cues.
“They told me to say I bought a motorbike, mounted a camera on it and went to film,” he said in the call. “That was very odd — there was never any mention of what kind of motorbike it was or where it came from. I never did that. They made me say it anyway.”
After resisting, he said he was blindfolded, chained in a schoolyard, and filmed again. “They said, ‘This video is for before your execution. If you read the confession we wrote, maybe we’ll change your sentence to life imprisonment.’”
Judge Abolghasem Salavati of Tehran’s Revolutionary Court—referred to by dissidents as the “hanging judge” for his record of issuing numerous death sentences in politically sensitive cases—and upheld by the Supreme Court.
All three retrial requests were rejected — the last one dismissed within two days and without explanation.
His father, Massoud Langarneshin, released a video the day before the execution, calling the case “full of flaws, ambiguities and questions.” His mother also confirmed she had her final visit with Mohsen that same day and appealed for help.
Several human rights groups including Norway based rights group Iran Human Rights (IHR) condemned the hanging, which IHR said took place alongside several other prisoners," said IHRNGO Director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam.
“We must raise the cost of these extrajudicial killings for the authorities through strong international reactions and widespread protest.”
Sheermohammadi said Iranian authorities refused to tell Langarneshin family where he was buried and had forced them to delete all their social media posts.
“Mohsen’s family is being forced into silence by intelligence agents. They have been told not to speak to the media about Mohsen. Only if they obey the conditions set by the intelligence agents are they willing to disclose his burial site,” another source told Iran International.
After eleven days of uncertainty, Sheermohammadi confirmed that Langarneshin had been buried in Behesht Zahra cemetery in south Tehran, alongside other executed political prisoners.
"In a symbolic act of resistance against the Iranian regime's oppression, Jafar Panahi wins a Palme d'Or, reigniting hope for freedom fighters around the world," French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said on Saturday in a French post on his X account.
On Sunday, the Iranian Foreign Ministry's Director General for Western Europe Mohammad Tanhaei summoned the French envoy to convey Tehran’s strong protest against Barrot's statements.
"Tanhaei condemned his comments as a blatant interference in Iran’s internal affairs and labeled them as irresponsible and provocative," a Foreign Ministry statement said.
He also demanded an official explanation from the French Foreign Ministry.
Tanhaei criticized Paris for what he called the politicization of a cultural event, accusing the French government of misusing its role as host of a cinematic occasion to advance political agendas against Iran.
Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi also called on French officials to "spare Iranians the lectures" on human rights.
"There have been many transgressions making a mockery of France's "human rights activism". But perhaps nothing has made the hypocrisy as stark as the French approach to the Israeli regime and its war crimes. Spare us Iranians the lectures. You have no moral authority whatsoever," he said in a post on X.
The French foreign minister's comments came after Panahi used his speech at the Cannes to call for unity among Iranians worldwide in their struggle for freedom at home.
Panahi, who has faced imprisonment and a nearly 15-year travel ban for his outspoken criticism of the Islamic Republic, received a standing ovation as Cate Blanchett presented the award.
In his acceptance speech, he urged unity among Iranians striving for democracy: "Let's set aside our differences. The important thing now is the freedom of our country, so that no one would dare to tell us what to wear or what film to make."
Panahi's remarks have earned him widespread praise from political, civic and cultural figures around the world.
