FILMING WITH PURPOSE
There are many powerful scenes in Iranian drama It Was Just an Accident. However, the penultimate sequence of the film – in which Ebrahim Azizi’s Eghbal is tied to a tree and interrogated by the film’s protagonists – is striking in its simplicity, as a static camera remains fixed on Azizi for 10 uninterrupted minutes. DP Amin Jafari reveals why he and director Jafar Panahi took this approach.
In Jafar Panahi’s filmmaking method, almost everything is predetermined – he has the complete decoupage of every sequence in his mind before shooting. However, I remember that for this particular scene, he had several different ideas. We rehearsed each of them separately, and if I’m not mistaken, we even filmed them. It was one of those rare sequences where, even for Jafar, the final mise-en-scène needed to be discovered through the act of shooting itself.
In the end, none of the other ideas were as powerful as this one. We wanted the scene to feel as believable as possible for the audience – so that nothing, not even the smallest element, would distract their attention. Imagine if we had cuts or lens changes; it could easily have broken the emotional flow for both the actors and the viewer.
That’s why we decided to keep the camera completely bare and direct, positioned at Eghbal’s (Ebrahim Azizi) eye level, without any movement – except for one very subtle adjustment in framing when Shiva (Mariam Afshari) enters the scene. For Vahid Mobasseri, we defined a specific area so he would know where he was inside or outside the frame, and how close or far he could move from the camera. We marked a rectangle on the ground, but neither Jafar nor I imposed any additional restrictions on his movement. Within that zone, he was completely free to act and move as he felt.
It was the same approach with Afshari. She also had a defined movement area, but since much of her performance was seated beside Eghbal, I kept the camera flexible. She could stand halfway up or sit down at any moment, and I didn’t want to limit her in a scene that was so deeply emotional. I preferred that she remain fully immersed in her feelings rather than thinking about where exactly to stand. So, I left the tilt of the camera open and stayed responsive to her movements. Any framing adjustments were made very softly and naturally, in direct harmony with Mariam’s own motion.
Framing a foe
Azizi is not only a professional actor who has appeared in many underground short and feature films, but also a civil activist who openly opposes mandatory hijab and censorship. He has complete conviction in what he does. He insisted that the blindfold remain on at all times, even during rehearsals, and that his hands – although not visible in the frame – should also be truly tied. He preferred to stay in that state even between takes. He remained like that for more than three hours, until Mr. Panahi gave his final approval for the scene.
Honestly, I didn’t have to give him much direction. Although he was in the centre of the frame and it was one of the most important sequences of the film – probably the most important performance of his – I had no challenges working with him because he was almost motionless. The key point, though, is that he literally couldn’t see anything. He truly didn’t know where the other actors were standing and could only sense their positions through their voices – just like a real interrogation situation with a blindfold. I think he even forgot where the camera was placed; he had no idea what the frame size was. For me as well, his performance was so powerful that while I was behind the camera shooting that scene, I sometimes forgot I was filming at all.
This framing emerged organically through rehearsals and multiple takes of the same scene. The film is about breaking the cycle of violence. We are used to hearing one side: accounts of violent interrogations in Iranian prisons. Many have returned from prison with painful testimonies of interrogation – sometimes torture. In this sequence, we invert the roles: the interrogator becomes the accused. To explore that reversal, we needed to observe his reactions fully.
Vahid and Mariam’s words are vital and heartbreaking, but they feel familiar to the audience; we’ve heard similar testimonies before. What matters here is to hear – and scrutinise – Eghbal’s words and reactions, and to do so with him blindfolded, which mirrors the very logic of real interrogations where the detainee sees nothing and only hears voices.
Keeping a static frame on Eghbal concentrates the scene’s power. Universally, we all grapple with the same question: when an oppressor finally faces the people, what should be done? In that moment, he is the most crucial presence; we want every ounce of attention on him. That is why the focus remains on Eghbal – for us behind the camera (Jafar and myself) and for the audience – because the most important thing is to understand what he has to say, and then what must be done after he says it.
Working in secret
The scene was filmed in an area east of Tehran – a very quiet place with almost no traffic or movement. I remember that Panahi himself had explored many possible locations, and for a few days I accompanied him. On one of those days, he told me he wanted to revisit a place that had been used years ago as one of the locations in Abbas Kiarostami’s film Taste of Cherry. He couldn’t remember the exact spot, but he roughly recalled the area. We went there, and near that same Taste of Cherry location, we found the place that eventually became what you see in the film.
During weekdays – except for holidays – the area is extremely quiet. There’s usually no police presence, and we could work there for hours without any disturbance or problem. It turned out to be a perfect location: we could see the city in the distance, which was important to us, and it was dark and isolated enough to fit our needs. For a production that had to operate secretly, it was ideal.
Giving red light the green light
The red light you see here appears twice in the film, and both times it’s used on Eghbal’s (Ebrahim Azizi’s) face. The first time is in the scene where he hits the dog with his car. When he gets out and stands behind the vehicle, the red light from the taillights intensifies his fear and shock. It also subconsciously suggests to the viewer that something significant is about to happen – something that begins with that accident.
The second time is here, where the red light from the rear of the car amplifies several emotions at once: fear, anger, and love – love for his newborn son. Throughout this long sequence, the meaning of the red light shifts; it carries different emotional tones as the scene unfolds. My crew for the entire film consisted of only two assistants and myself – there was no separate lighting team. I always design the lighting myself, whether it’s for minimalist films like this one or for larger productions.
Initially, my idea was to use very minimal lighting in this scene, but the actor’s face and emotions needed to remain visible throughout the long take. I thought about a few options – like using a balloon light, which wasn’t really possible because it would attract attention, or a soft ambient light, or other sources that had no clear logic in the scene and were only meant to brighten the face. But I rejected all of them because I felt they would subconsciously make the moment less believable.
Eventually, I arrived at the idea of using the car’s rear lights as the sole source. It was both exciting and a bit frightening – to keep the actor’s face lit in red for more than 10 minutes with a static camera. I wasn’t sure whether it would be tolerable or even effective. But after the first complete take, when I saw the whole shot, I knew it was the right decision. We slightly reinforced the car’s taillights and made a very small adjustment to their angle so that his face would be properly visible. Looking back now, I believe that any other kind of light – anything other than that red – would have weakened the impact of this scene.
For this, we used the car’s own rear lights as well as a few Astera Helios Tube – wireless LED units. In general, all of our lighting equipment consisted of one small kit of these lights and two or three portable softbox lamps – lights that could run entirely on batteries without any need for mains power. Our choices were based on lightness, mobility and simplicity, which perfectly matched the minimalist shooting method of this film.
The film was shot with two camera systems: the main camera was a RED Komodo with Samyang lenses, and the second camera – which was used for the opening sequence – was an ARRI Alexa Mini with Ultra Primes. This specific scene, like the rest of the film (except for the opening sequence), was shot on the RED Komodo because this film was based on the idea of working under the condition of being unseen – true, physical invisibility. The presence of the crew had to be completely imperceptible in the streets. We had to behave like a very small documentary team, as if no camera existed at all.
