Award-winning Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi sentenced to prison for ‘propaganda activities’

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Filmmaker says he intends to return to his country to carry out sentence

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Iran sentenced award-winning director Jafar Panahi to one year in prison in absentia and imposed a travel ban for what it called “propaganda activities” against the country.

Panahi’s lawyer Mostafa Nili confirmed the sentence to Agence France-Presse, clarifying that it also prohibits the filmmaker from joining any political or social groups. He will also be banned from leaving Iran for two years.

“Mr Panahi is outside Iran right now,” Mr Nili said, adding that the charges stated that he had engaged in “propaganda activities” against the state, with no further information.

Mr Nili said they would appeal the Iranian court’s ruling.

Panahi will be returning to Tehran, according to American journalist Roger Friedman’s column in Showbiz411.

“Iranians are very loyal. Also his family is there and he wants to be at home,” one of his producers, who remained unnamed, told Friedman.

Panahi, 65, accepted the Gotham awards in New York for best screenplay and best director for his newest film It Was Just an Accident on Tuesday.

The Cannes Palme d’Or-winning drama also won the award for best international feature, and is France’s entry for the international feature award at the forthcoming Oscars.

“I would like to dedicate the honour of this award to independent filmmakers in Iran and around the world, filmmakers who keep the camera rolling in silence, without support, and at times by risking everything they have, only with their faith in truth and humanity,” he said, after accepting his first award of the night for best screenplay via a translator, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

“I hope that this dedication will be considered a small tribute to all filmmakers who have been deprived of the right to see and to be seen, but continue to create and exist.”

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In an interview with The Financial Times, published two days before his sentence was announced, Panahi talked about his set being raided while making the film, and that he always intended to return to his country.

“I only know how to make films in Iran, so I have to return. And then, whatever happens will happen,” he said.

Panahi, who currently resides in France, is also scheduled to attend the Marrakech Film Festival on Thursday, where It Was Just an Accident will be screened.

Panahi has been on a press tour for the Persian-language film, a co-production with Paris-based producer Les Films Pelléas and distributed in France by Memento Distribution.

It Was Just An Accident premiered at the Cannes Film Festival In May this year and won the Palme d'Or. The thriller, which was inspired by Panahi’s time in prison, follows five formerly imprisoned Iranians who meet a man they suspect tortured them in prison and question whether to pursue vengeance.

Panahi has been arrested, detained, and questioned several times by the government over the years. In 2010, after his public show of support for mass protests after the contested presidential election, he was convicted of “propaganda against the state”, given a six‑year prison sentence, banned from filmmaking, and barred from international travel. He was released, but put on house arrest and barred from travelling outside Iran.

In July 2022 he was again detained when he visited the prosecutor’s office to inquire about fellow filmmakers Mohammad Rasoulof and Mostafa Aleahmad, who had been arrested. He was then put back into prison to serve his 2010 sentence in full, a move that was criticised internationally.

Panahi was finally released in February 2023 after going on a hunger strike, and his travel ban was lifted.

The director continued to make films despite the government directive banning him, and made the documentary feature This Is Not a Film in 2011, which premiered at Cannes, followed by the Berlinale Silver Bear winner Closed Curtain in 2013, Golden Bear winner Taxi in 2015, No Bearsin 2022, and his latest, It Was Just An Accident.

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