After years of being banned from leaving Iran, filmmaker Jafar Panahi is enjoying his tour of the United States -- visiting Los Angeles, New York and Telluride -- as he promotes his Oscar-hopeful "It Was Just an Accident."

The film, which won the Palme d'Or at Cannes, has been selected by France as its official nomination for the Academy Awards, and is widely expected to make the shortlist for the Best International Feature at the gala event in March.

"It Was Just an Accident" tells the story of a torturer from the Islamic Republic who finds himself in the hands of his former prisoners -- who were jailed for protesting for women's rights and fair wages -- and their struggle to decide whether to exact revenge or to take the moral high ground.

Made clandestinely, filming was halted by the

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