Jafar Panahi was sentenced to five years in prison

Jafar Panahi's lawyer, Mostafa Nili, told Iranian online news agency Emtedad that Tehran's Revolutionary Court also ordered the confiscation of all the director's movable and immovable assets, a two-year ban on using social media and a two-year ban on travel.

The lawyer also said that Panahi's bank accounts were suddenly frozen last week. He and his client then went to the Tehran prosecutor's office, where the director learned of the sentence handed down in absentia.

According to Nili, the case file alleged that Panahi lived outside Iran, despite the director having returned to the country on March 30, 2026, shortly after the awards ceremony of the 98th Academy Awards, where his film A Simple Accident received a nomination in the Best International Film category representing France.

As reported by the website The Hollywood Reporter, according to Nili, Panahi currently has three legal proceedings underway, while according to independent film journalist Mansour Jahani, the director, who is currently in Iran, has not yet been jailed.

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PREVIOUS PROBLEMS WITH THE IRANIAN AUTHORITIES

Over the past two decades, Jafar Panahi has had frequent clashes with Iranian authorities.

In 2010 the director, known for award-winning works such as The White Balloon (1995) winner of the Caméra d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, The Circle (2000) winner of the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, Offside (2006), This Is Not a Film (2011), Taxi Tehran (2015) winner of the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival and The Bears Don't Exist (2022) was banned from making films, speaking to the press and travelling, although he continued to make films in secret.

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

The ban was then lifted in April 2023, and Iranian authorities allowed Panahi to travel to the Cannes Film Festival to present the film A Simple Accident.

Subsequently, the director dedicated himself to promoting the film, which tells the story of the outburst of a group of former prisoners against a guard who tortured them, and which was inspired by his experience in prison.

He then returned to Iran, despite the risk of a one-year prison sentence for carrying out propaganda activities against the state.

“I'm the kind of person who needs to be in my own country,” he told Variety magazine. "I need to breathe there and work there. And even if they want to go ahead with the prison sentence, they can. Nothing will change my mind about coming back."

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