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“My Method is Invisible Editing”: Editor Amir Etminan on “It Was Just an Accident”
It Was Just an Accident From its opening head-on shot of a family driving down an unlit road to its devastating, confrontational climax, Jafar Panahi’s It Was Just an Accident frequently deploys long takes to situate the audience within moral discomfort. While that formal restraint runs through the entire film, it still leaves room for a diverse editing style befitting Panahi’s first feature since the suspension of his twenty-year filmmaking ban. (Following the film’s release, the Iranian government has subsequently sentenced him to one year in prison in absentia for “propaganda activities.”) In its shot selection and fluctuating cutting rhythm, It Was Just an Accident remains slightly off balance. Unpredictably veering between humor and pathos, it generates a volatile tone that embodies the conflicted emotions of the victims at its center, all of whom are weighing the value and spiritual cost of revenge.
Editor Amir Etminan first worked with Panahi on his 2020 short film Hidden, which follows the director, his daughter and their associate traveling to a rural Kurdish village to visit a gifted singer whose parents forbid her from performing. Etminan then went on to co-edit Hit the Road (2021)—the debut feature from Panah, Jafar Panahi’s son—before solo editing No Bears (2022). Etminan’s work on It Was Just an Accident has garnered him acclaim, especially for his ability to maintain raw realism while working minimally under clandestine conditions.
I spoke with editor Etminan via an interpreter from their home in Istanbul to discuss his working relationship with Panahi, how he gained his trust by co-editing his son’s debut feature Hit the Road and why filmmakers have a responsibility to differentiate themselves from authoritarians.
Filmmaker: First off, congratulations on the beautiful film, and thank you so much for making the time to talk. Are you safe in general? Are you or your loved ones affected in any way by [Panahi’s] jail sentence?
Amir Etminan: The sentence is not about the film, it’s about the way he’s representing the film in the festivals. For the moment, it seems like only the director has been targeted; the crew haven’t had any problems so far. [Actually,] I can’t say it’s not because of the film, because it seems like this happened exactly after the film started to go viral on social platforms. The complete film is on Telegram for the moment. Also, I don’t live in Iran at the moment.
Filmmaker: When were you there last?
Etminan: When I asked for a visa to go to France for the Cannes Film Festival.
Filmmaker: Can you please tell us a little bit about how you and Panahi connected with each other and how you were able to build the tremendous trust that necessary to collaborate under these circumstances?
Etminan: This is my third direct collaboration with Mr. Panahi. I was working in association with [an] independent director in a very small region in northwest Iran. We started to make independent films that received a good reception all over the country. At some point, Mr. Panahi came to help us as a consultant, and that was when I first met him. I didn’t meet him as an editor, I met him as a person, as a member of this independent cinema association. So, for example, for 3 Faces (2018), I just helped him with [acquiring] authorization from the authorities, obtaining the necessary documents and those kind of things. The first time [I worked with him] was on a film directed by his son, Hit the Road (2021).
After that project, we started to get to know each other. I started to know his way of working, his taste and [cinematic] grammar, and he started to know the way that I work. For example, I’m the kind of editor that participates in the shooting because, for me, the editing starts on set. We began to deeply know each other since that project. Also, he knew that I have no problem with [protesting] against this regime and [their] authority. He’s a very moral person, so it’s very important for him that people are conscious about the risk they are taking when joining his crew.
Filmmaker: Mr. Panahi is such a master of translating ordinary experiences into cinema. It seems your work is instrumental to guarding the truth of the story and the characters. I’m curious how much you’re involved with the script?
Etminan: Due to the security-sensitive atmosphere of the project, we couldn’t exchange the script. Plus, I was living in Istanbul at the time when Mr. Panahi started the project, but I was present on-set. We had long conversations on set and also after shooting. He would start a rough cut, and if it was necessary to change anything, we would discuss that and try to find answers to the questions that would [arise] between us.
Filmmaker: Directors always say that editing is the last stage of writing and embrace the fact that you can explore different directions in the edit. Did you push towards different versions of the film—ones with more humor, more drama, more realism? Did you create vastly different versions of scenes?
Etminan: The editor can [make any] film a miracle or do absolutely nothing for the project. To me, the main duty of the editor is to help the cinematographer, director, sound designer, sound recorder, all those members of the crew, do their job and create the best result. I’ve been told the director of this project is one of the masters of cinema. But he’s still very democratic and flexible. If I said, “We need to change this. We need to reshoot this part,” he would always listen and be open to accepting my request. After each scene, Mr. Panahi would turn his head and ask, “Editor, was it okay? Cinematographer, was it okay?” Everyone needed to confirm that we got what we needed, then he would [move on] to the next shot. If we thought something needed to change, he would always listen to us. He was always joking, “If you say okay right now and tomorrow on the editing table [you say something else], you are responsible. I’m not responsible!”
Filmmaker: I’m really stunned by the precision and intentionality of each edit. I’m wondering how much you’re a part of the construction of breakdowns or storyboarding, or the process of figuring out how to shoot a scene?
Etminan: I know his cinema very well, so I would give input during the shooting. For example, something would happen by coincidence, and I would say, “Okay, let’s bring some attention to this point.” If it’s necessary, he would shoot something that goes with the specific things I would see. It was also a collaboration during the shooting. My method is invisible editing. I don’t want the audience to feel a cut. This method goes very well with Mr. Panahi’s cinematic language. He doesn’t want to exaggerate anything. He doesn’t want to make the audience [conscious of the film’s construction]. I don’t want to show myself in editing and Mr. Panahi doesn’t want to show himself as a director.
Filmmaker: Yet you so beautifully balance the storyline as well as the interplay between the characters. Mr. Panahi talked about how some of the scenes, like the one in the desert with the entire ensemble and the 13-minute take at the end, took several days to shoot, and there are no cuts. You’re very intentional in terms of how to guide the shot and how to balance the performances between different actors across the film.
Etminan: This method of invisible editing also prepares the audience for such long scenes. They didn’t feel the cuts before, so now [that] we don’t have them, [they don’t feel] a big difference. They are ready for such long takes. On the editing table, for example, sometimes you receive ten shots for one sequence and just use three. On this project, sometimes Mr. Panahi would shoot, turn his head to look at me and ask, “Is it enough?” I would say, “Yes,” so we wouldn’t film anymore. The image was there. The story was there.
This confidence started on Hit the Road. In Hit the Road, we have an extreme long shot of the landscape and someone with a motorcycle comes into frame to pick up a kid. I actually edited 15 different shots for this one sequence, and Mr. Panahi asked me, “What do you think about your editing?” I said, “To be honest, I would only keep the extreme long shot where the motorcycle comes in, picks the kid up and leaves the frame. I wouldn’t use any of those other angles that we shot.”
We had almost two days of conflict over this decision. Mr. Panahi became a bit upset about the situation. He eventually asked me, “What do you want to do? What is your shot?” I said, “This is the beginning of my shot and this is the end.” He said, “Okay, keep it like this,” then we went to the next scene. After the film screened at Cannes, some article came out that emphasized that scene, saying it was very well done and it was the best way to tell the story. I remember I received a call from Panah and Mr. Panahi that that was a great decision. So, my confidence started to build around those kind of events.
Filmmaker: On the subject of cutting or not cutting, did you lose any scenes during the editing process?
Etminan: If you remember, there is a scene when Vahid and the group goes to Eghbal’s house after they find out his wife is pregnant. We shot a scene inside his house, but during editing, I said to Mr. Panahi, “It’s not necessary.” This was one of the scenes we completely threw out.
Since I was on set, if there was something that I didn’t want, I would speak up during shooting. I didn’t need to look at it on the editing table to decide. We have to forget about the Hollywood style of cinema where they make a shot, take it to the editing table and have time to decide about it. I went to the set with what we’re using to speak right now, a 13-inch MacBook Air, and did everything on that. Not because I didn’t have something else, just because the situation was very sensitive, security wise. So all the editing decisions were made on the set. When the police came to set near the end of production, they couldn’t believe this small MacBook Air was the equipment I used for editing the film. They just left it.
Filmmaker: I always feel every film teaches you something new. Were there any surprises? Did you learn anything to improve your own process, or were there any challenges that you’d like to share?
Etminan: Firstly, since my method is invisible editing, it’s very strange how everyone talks about the editing of this film, telling me that it’s good. It feels like maybe I did something wrong! [Laughs.]
What I learned is that Mr. Panahi’s cinema is not an instrument of entertainment. It’s an instrument of social activism and political protest. I rarely see people use cinema as a political or social instrument to shout what they have to say. You know, the totalitarian authorities have guns, so they have power to kill. But in a film, the filmmaker has the power to kill his characters. But if the filmmaker kills his characters, just like the totalitarians kill people, then what is the difference between a director and the authoritarian system? I think the director has to exercise forgiveness to end the cycle of violence. For me, killing is killing. It doesn’t matter if it’s in the real world where the system kills people, or if it’s a director killing a character in a virtual world. The most important point of this project is that Mr. Panahi decides to forgive instead of avenge.
