Iran has sentenced in absentia Palme d’Or-winning filmmaker Jafar Panahi to one year in prison and a travel ban over “propaganda activities” against the country.
The sentence was reported by French news agency Agence France Presse, citing Panahi’s lawyer Mostafa Nili.
The travel ban is two years long, lawyer Mostafa Nili told AFP, adding that they would file an appeal.
Panahi won the Cannes Film Festival’s top prize this year for It Was Just An Accident.
The director is currently in the United States to promote the film ahead of the Oscars.
Last night (December 1), he was at the Gotham Film Awards in New York where It Was Just an Accident won all three of the categories it was nominated in – best director, original screenplay, and international feature.
Panahi is due to attend Marrakech Film Festival later this week.
The film has been selected by France as its official nomination for the international feature category of the Academy Awards, and is one of the favourites to make the shortlist.
Panahi made his feature film debut in 1995 with The White Balloon, which won the Camera d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival.
In 2000, The Circle won the Golden Lion in Venice while Crimson Gold (2003), written by Abbas Kiarostami, won the jury prize in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard. Offside (2006) won the Silver Bear in Berlin.
In July 2009, Panahi was arrested for participating in a ceremony to commemorate a demonstrator killed during protest marches that followed the re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The following year, he was banned from making films altogether for twenty years.
But, in 2011, with Mojtaba Mirtahmasb, he made the documentary This Is Not A Film which premiered at Cannes. It was followed by Berlinale Silver Bear winner Closed Curtain (2013) and Golden Bear winner Taxi Tehran (2015).
3 Faces (2018) won an award for best screenplay at Cannes. In 2022, he made No Bears, but was unable to attend the presentation of the film at Venice, where he won the special jury prize, because he was arrested again and accused of anti-regime propaganda. He was released from prison in 2023.
It Was Just An Accident is inspired by his time in prison. It follows a man, his heavily pregnant wife and their young daughter, who are involved in a minor car accident and swept up in an uncontrollable chain of events.
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