open the door Archives - Jeremy C. Processing

It Was Just an Accident
(Yek Tasadef Sadeh,
یک تصادف ساده)

Director – Jafar Panahi – 2025 – Iran, France, Luxembourg – Cert. 12a – 105m

*****

When a man hits an animal driving on country roads late at night, unforeseen consequences ensue – out in UK cinemas on Friday, December 5th

It’s late at night and the family are returning by car. Eghbal (Ebrahim Azizi), who is driving, and his wife (Afssaneh Najmabadi) keep their small daughter (Delnaz Najafi) amused with raucous, Iranian dance music. Then there’s a bang as the car hits something. Dad stops, gets out and finds he’s hit an animal. “Animals just walk onto these roads,” he explains to his traumatised daughter. The mother tries to pacify the child, saying this happens all the time and is nothing to worry about. The little girl is upset; she was enjoying the loud music before, but now she isn’t. At her request, dad turns it off. A sombre mood settles over the car.

The vehicle isn’t right since the collision, so dad takes it to a garage for them to have a look at it. One of the mechanics Vahid (Vahid Mobasseri) spots him, keeps out of sight, then borrows his boss’ van keys for a emergency to follow the departing vehicle.… Read the rest

Pachyderm
(Pachyderme)

Director – Stéphanie Clément – 2022 – France – 11m

*****

A nine-year-old struggles with the trauma that befalls her at her grandpa’s – nominated for Best Animated Short at the 2024 Academy Awards, VoD details below review

She’s nine (voice-over: Christa Theret), and in the Summer she goes to stay with granny and grandpa. She plays on a swing, missing mum and dad, she watches a cabbage white butterfly in the garden. The house is tidy, ordered, perhaps obsessively so. It smells of polish; the kitchen smells of bleach. Tomorrow, grandpa will take her to the lake, where he likes to fish. To get to her bedroom, she must pass the big, intimidating horn mounted at the top of the stairs, a hunting trophy from a pachyderm. In her room, she can see eyes watching her from the wood grain of the ceiling timbers. She doesn’t sleep by counting sheep; she kills monsters. As the floorboards creak outside her door, she hides in the wallpaper, in the flowers, in sleep. After all, as grandma says, what could happen?

Before the trip, she accidentally pricks a finger on one of grandpa’s fishing hooks – lures, as they call them – but grandpa kisses the cut better with the kiss that heals all things.… Read the rest