Palme d’Or-winning film director Jafar Panahi has been sentenced to one year in prison in absentia in Iran, his lawyer said, according to AFP.
Mostafa Nili, Panahi’s lawyer, said the sentence includes a two-year travel ban for Panahi and a ban on him joining any political or social organizations. He added that he plans to appeal.
The charges against the filmmaker were that he engaged in “propaganda activities” against the state, but Nili did not provide details.
Variety reports that Panahi, who is in the United States promoting his Cannes Film Festival winner “It Was Just an Accident,” is scheduled to attend the Gotham Awards in New York City tonight. The director is nominated for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay, and his film is nominated for Best International Feature Film. He is scheduled to attend the Marrakech Film Festival, where the film will be screened, on Thursday and is expected to take part in an on-stage discussion. Mr. Panahi currently resides in France.
“It Was Just an Accident” was selected as an entry in France for the International Feature Film category at the Academy Awards and is expected to be shortlisted. In this film, five ex-convicts decide whether to take revenge on a man they believe to be a former guard.
The coach has frequently clashed with Iranian authorities.
In 2010, he was banned from making films and from leaving Iran for supporting anti-government protests and making films critical of Iran.
He was subsequently found guilty of “propaganda against the regime” and sentenced to six years in prison, but served just two months before being released on bail.
Despite being banned from making films, he filmed a documentary, This Is Not a Film, which was released in 2011, followed by Taxi, in which Panahi played a taxi driver, in 2015.
He was arrested in 2022 in connection with protests by a group of filmmakers, but was released about seven months later.
