Jafar Panahi’s One-Year Prison Sentence Upheld by Iranian Court

Tehran’s Revolutionary Court has upheld a one-year prison sentence against Palme d’Or-winning filmmaker Jafar Panahi who in December had been sentenced in absentia on charges of engaging in propaganda activities against the Iranian state.

Panahi’s lawyer Mostafa Nili announced the decision by the court to reject the director’s appeal during a press briefing in Tehran on Sunday, according to independent film journalist Mansour Jahani and other sources.

This sentence can now be appealed to the Tehran Provincial Court of Appeal within twenty days, the lawyer said. This means that it will not lead to Panahi’s immediate incarceration.

Panahi returned to Iran at the end of March shortly after the ceremony for the 98th Academy Awards in which his latest film “It Was Just An Accident” made it to the nomination stage as France’s candidate in the Best International Feature Film Category.

Over the past two decades Panahi has had frequent run-ins with the Iranian authorities.

In 2010, the auteur — known globally for other prizewinning works such as “The Circle,” “Offside,” “This is Not a Film,” “Taxi” and “No Bears” — was banned from making movies, speaking to the press and traveling, though he surreptitiously kept making them anyway.

In 2022, Panahi was arrested in connection with protests by a group of filmmakers but was released about seven months later.

The ban was lifted in April 2023, and Iranian authorities allowed Panahi to travel to Cannes to launch “It Was Just an Accident.” Panahi subsequently travelled widely to promote the drama which centers around an outpouring of strong feelings by a group of former prisoners toward a torturous guard and stems from his incarceration.