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After initially being canceled due to visa issues, New York Film Festival audiences on Friday were treated to a warm and wide-ranging conversation between Jafar Panahi and Martin Scorsese. The two titans of cinema took to the stage of the Walter Reade Theater (plus Panahi’s translator) to discuss the Iranian filmmaker’s career, including the many incidents that have forced him to work in secret, plus his latest film, Palme d’Or winner “It Was Just an Accident.”

Panahi’s latest is his first feature since he was incarcerated for several months in 2023 for criticizing the Iranian government. As he has often been forced to do in recent years, Panahi shot the film in secret. The film was inspired by his own experiences in prison.

At the conclusion of the hour-long-plus discussion, Scorsese asked Panahi what he thinks the future of Iranian cinema is these days, particularly in light of the departure (and exile) of many of Panahi’s contemporaries, such as Bahman Ghobadi and Mohammad Rasoulof.

“After the revolution, these waves of migration, forced migration almost, started as unwanted exile,” Panahi said through his translator. “Many of the actors and directors who were at the height of their careers were forced to leave Iran. … This became more and more and it was really difficult to bear, especially in the first decade after the revolution. … All the backbones of Iranian filmmaking are out. I really miss all those films that they could have made in Iran and that they didn’t. Some of them were able to adapt and stay [there] and work [there], but then there are others like myself who cannot leave Iran.”

As our own Anne Thompson told it best in her recent profile of “It Was Just an Accident” filmmaker and auteur Panahi: “Over the past 15 years, [he] has been imprisoned, blindfolded, interrogated, and put under house arrest with a 20-year ban on making films” by his native country. But on Friday, Panahi was firm: He’s not leaving Iran, and he’s excited about the filmmaking community that endures.

“I don’t have the courage and I don’t have the ability to leave Iran and stay out of Iran,” Panahi said. “I have stayed there and I am going to work there. But there is something else I want to add, there are a lot of young filmmakers who are coming and who are making the best films of Iranian cinema in the same style that we are making films. And they are not going to accept censorship whatsoever. And it has become so common that even within the film circles in Iran, everyone is talking about taking these people seriously, people making films clandestinely, whereas there was a time that no one really paid attention.”

He added, “Although we are not concerned about the future of Iranian cinema, we very much would love for all of our friends who left to return one day,” noting that Rasoulof in particular is looking for ways to return to his home country to work.

Scorsese, who is clearly a huge admirer and fan of Panahi and his work, was quick to offer his ideas for how the work of these rising filmmakers can and should be seen: in short, widely.

“This has to be supported by the international distribution [world], I would think, streaming platforms, film festivals, et. cetera, these films have to be supported that way, for us to see them,” Scorsese said. “Streamers have a lot of room, and they throw things that are just not up to the same level [on to their platforms]. There’s no reason why a Criterion, a Mubi, an Amazon, all of that couldn’t show these films.”

The filmmaker and champion of film also noted that the impact could be profound, not just on cinema, but Iran itself.

“I mean, neorealism from Italy in 1945, it gave the heart back to the Italian people that was destroyed during the war and with everything that happened,” he added. “The film themselves, it gave their soul back, through cinema, and that was neorealism. So cinema can be very powerful, everybody can see that. So it’s really getting to see these films. It’s not just putting them on something, and putting them up on, what are they called? Tiles? You have to kind of curate them, so you know where you’re going, you know what you’re looking at.”

Scorsese and his light disdain for streamers’ homepage tiles was greeted with applause, and both Scorsese and Panahi, who ended their chat with a long hug on stage, were met with a standing ovation. This one was worth the wait.

Neon will release “It Was Just An Accident” in theaters in New York and Los Angeles on Wednesday, October 15, with a national rollout to follow.