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Iran sentences acclaimed film director
Jafar Panahi to new prison term after his return home
[October 29, 2026]
CAIRO (AP) — Iran has sentenced acclaimed director Jafar Panahi to five
years and one month in prison, following his return to the country
earlier this year, after the start of the U.S. and Israeli attacks on
the Islamic Republic.
The Tehran court also ordered the confiscation of Panahi’s “movable and
immovable assets,” his lawyer Mostafa Nili told the reformist news site
Emtedad in an interview late Tuesday.
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Director Jafar Panahi, winner of the Palme d'Or for the film "It Was
Just an Accident," appears at the awards ceremony photo call at the 78th
international film festival, Cannes, southern France, on May 24, 2025.
(Photo by Scott A Garfitt/Invision/AP, File) |
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Nili did not say what Panahi was convicted of. But the director,
who returned to Iran in March, had been previously convicted of
“propaganda activities against the system.”
Panahi's sentence was handed down on Monday, a friend and an
Iranian activist based in Europe told The Associated Press over
the phone. Hossein Razzagh said he spoke with Panahi on Monday
evening after the sentencing and the filmmaker had not been
detained.
The sentence can be appealed but “now all of his bank accounts
have been blocked,” Razzagh added.
Panahi has spoken out against Iran’s leadership and condemned
violence against anti-government protesters, in past interviews
with foreign media.
Panahi is among the most celebrated of contemporary Iranian
directors and has continued making movies despite repeatedly
being imprisoned, banned from traveling and put under house
arrest by Iranian authorities over the past 20 years.
He filmed “It Was Just an Accident” clandestinely in Iran
following a seven-month stint in prison that only ended in 2023
once he went on a hunger strike.
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