STORY: :: Iranian director Asghar Farhadi says recent deaths in Iran have been 'deeply painful'
:: Cannes, France / May 15, 2026
FARHADI: "In recent months, and toward the end of the period when I was working on the post-production of this film, two very painful events took place in my country. // I was actually in Tehran last week, and I am still carrying the impact of these events with me. //One of these events was the killing of many innocent people, children and civilians who were killed in the war, as you all know. // And some time before that, there was the killing of protesters in the streets in January, when many people were also killed. // Whatever the perspective, the killing of human beings is unacceptable to me, // whether through war, execution, or the killing of protesters. // It is profoundly painful that in the 21st century, despite all our progress, we still so often begin our mornings by reading news of innocent people being killed."
"Parallel Tales," whose cast includes Isabelle Huppert and Vincent Cassel, is Farhadi's fifth time competing for the festival's Palme d'Or top prize.
He won the Berlin Film Festival's top prize in 2011 for "A Separation," which went on to win the Oscar for best foreign language film the following year, becoming the first Iranian movie to win that award.
Farhadi won the same Oscar five years later with "The Salesman," though he boycotted the ceremony in protest against the travel ban affecting several Muslim-majority countries during U.S. President Donald Trump's first presidential term.
