Panahi’s debut is one of the biggest surprises at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. The son of Iranian cinema legend Jafar Panahi enchanted the audience with a film that once grips the road tightly, only to ignore gravity a moment later. This delightful tale of a family car journey masterfully doses the tension. The director keeps us uncertain to the end about the true purpose of the trip, which quietly deviates from the expressway and takes us to ever wilder corners of the country. An upset adult son sits behind the wheel, with his mother humming nostalgic songs in the passenger seat. A jokester father with a cast on his leg and a hyperactive teenager reign in the back, while an ailing dog travels in the trunk. Is this a weekend getaway or maybe an escape? An ordinary ride or smuggling? Under the layer of humour, lightness and nostalgia, there is sadness, tension, fear and the vision of a painful breakup. Enchanting landscapes of Hit the Road signal a change of style and guard in Iranian cinema, which, remaining closely intertwined with reality, starts to jojfully levitate over it. (Małgorzata Sadowska, IFF New Horizons)