Meet Me at Crafty

In director Jafar Panahi’s Palme d’Or-winning It Was Just an Accident (currently in select theaters), a chance encounter leads to a terrifying road trip when a group of former political prisoners think they have found their past torturer. Meanwhile, editor Amir Etminan was living his own quiet thriller on set in Iran.

During the 28-day production—which was happening in secret and without permits from the Islamic Republic—authorities arrived on set and ordered Etminan to open the back of his car. In it was a backpack containing the MacBook on which Etminan was editing the film.  Luckily, he had a distraction.

“There is this scene [in the movie] of a photographer taking photos, so there was another bag with two [prop] cameras in it,” Etminan recalls, via translator Mojtaba Bahadori. “When they took the backpack, I took the bag with the cameras, and it was very suspicious. And they go, ‘What’s that?’ And I was like, ‘Those are cameras.’”

The authorities promptly turned their attention to that bag, and the laptop remained undiscovered for the six hours they were investigated. By Panahi arrived, the footage—and the film itself—had remained undetected.

Known for shaping intimate, socially observant Iranian films, Etminan comes from an independent tradition where editors wear every hat.  “I’m coming from independent cinema,” he says. “Most of the time, we don’t have an assistant.  I’m used to watching every single second of the film. So even if I have an assistant, the only thing I would ask them to do is sync the sound and image. And in the end, I will check all the images myself.”

That immersion extends to production. Etminan insists on being on set, a rarity in most film industries but a condition of his involvement. “ It gives me this opportunity to check all the technical aspects of the work,” he says. “And even if there is a scene that doesn’t work in editing later on, to tell them. So if there is anything to change, they can change it straight away.”

Every night during It Was Just an Accident, Etminan joined the director, cinematographer, and sound team for long discussions about the project. For a film that challenges censorship boundaries and depicts life in Iran, those conversations mattered. “ Mr. Panahi, we have a long, long collaboration,” he says. “The way he’s putting everything together is very fluid. It was a very democratic environment.”

Editor Amir Etminan’s credits include No Bears, Between Us, and The Road to Gayda.