The Tehran Revolutionary Court has fully upheld an in-absence verdict against prominent Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi, sentencing him to one year in prison, as well as a two-year travel ban, on charges of engaging in propaganda against the Islamic Republic of Iran. Panahi’s lawyer Mostafa Nili told Iranian media outlet Emtedad on Sunday that Panahi is also banned from joining political and social groups and associations.
The grounds cited for the decision included “underground and problematic film making against the establishment”, supporting political prisoners, and supporting popular protests against the government, including the “Women, Life, Freedom” demonstrations.
The preliminary court ruling against Panahi was issued while he was abroad, promoting his film “A Simple Accident” and being honored with an award at the Gotham Awards in New York.
After winning the 2025 Palme d’Or, the Cannes Film Festival’s top prize, “A Simple Accident” was selected to represent France at the Academy Awards.
After attending the Oscars, Panahi returned to Iran on 30 March, despite being sentenced in absentia to a prison sentence.
This is not the first punishment for Jafar Panahi
For decades, the director has experienced censorship and imprisonment in his home country of Iran, even though he never aimed to become a political filmmaker.
“In my definition, a political filmmaker defends an ideology, where good people follow it and bad people oppose it,” the Iranian director told DW during the Cannes Festival 2025.
But for more than a decade, Panahi has had little choice. The director of “The White Balloon” and “The Circle” was given a 20-year ban on film production and international travel by Iranian authorities in 2010, following his support for the opposition Green Movement protests. This did not stop him.
Over the years, he found new ways to shoot, edit and smuggle his films — from turning his living room into a movie set (“This Is Not a Film,” 2011) to using a car as a mobile studio (in “Taxi,” which won the Golden Bear at the 2015 Berlinale).
He was arrested in July 2022 and imprisoned in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison. After nearly seven more months of hunger strike, he was released in February 2023. In a surprise legal victory, Iran’s Supreme Court overturned his original 2010 conviction. Panahi was legally free, but artistically he was still bound by a system to which he refused to submit.
“To make a film officially in Iran, you have to submit your script to the Ministry of Islamic Guidance for approval,” he told DW. “This is something I can’t do. I made another secret movie. Again.”
That film, “It Was Just an Accident”, may be Panahi’s most direct confrontation yet with state violence and repression. Shot in secret and featuring female characters in defiance of Iran’s hijab law, the film tells the story of a group of former prisoners who believe they have found the man who tortured them – and must decide whether to get revenge. This 24-hour long drama unfolds like a psychological thriller.
Film making is the only option
Despite a career defined by resistance, Panahi says he’s just doing what he knows. “During my 20-year ban, even my closest friends had given up hope that I would ever make films again,” he said at the Cannes press conference for “It Was Just an Accident” in May 2025.
“But people who know me know I can’t change a light bulb. I don’t know how to do anything except make movies.”
That single-minded dedication helped him progress even at the lowest level.
“I remember just before I was given a very heavy sentence of 20 years, banned from making films and travelling, and I thought: ‘What will I do now?’ “For a while, I was really upset,” he recalled. “Then I went to my window, I looked up and I saw these beautiful clouds in the sky. I immediately found my camera. I thought: ‘This isn’t something they can take away from me, I can still take pictures of the clouds.’
“Those pictures were later exhibited at the Center Pompidou in Paris… There is no way they can stop me from making films. If cinema is really sacred to you, something that gives meaning to your life, then no regime, no censorship, no authoritarian system can stop you.”
Why did Panahi return to Iran?
While many Iranian filmmakers have fled into exile — including Panahi’s close friend Mohammad Rasoulof, director of the Oscar-nominated “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” who now lives in Germany — Panahi said he has no plans to join them. “I was completely unable to adjust to another society,” he said. “I had to stay in Paris for three and a half months for post-production and I thought I was going to die.”
He explained that filmmaking in Iran is a community act of reform and faith. “At 2 p.m., I can call a colleague and say: ‘That shot needs to be longer.’ And he’ll come with me and we’ll work all night. You can’t work like this in Europe. “I have no relation.”
Edited by: Elizabeth Grenier
A longer version of this profile of Jafar Panahi was first published in May 2025. It was updated on June 8, 2026, to retain the filmmaker’s prison sentence.