Jafar Panahi now faces more than five years in prison in Iran
The director, Palme d’Or winner for A Simple Accident, was sentenced in absentia to an additional five years and one month in prison by the Tehran regime. His bank accounts were also frozen.
Jafar Panahi’s legal situation is worsening.
The Iranian filmmaker, who was already facing a one-year prison sentence, has just been sentenced by a revolutionary court in Tehran to five years and one month in prison in another case, according to the Iranian Emtedad news agency.
His lawyer, Mostafa Nili, clarified that this new conviction had been pronounced in absentia, which means that the filmmaker was not present. The court also ordered the confiscation of the director’s property, a two-year travel ban and a ban on using social media for the same duration. The charges against him in this case are not known. According to his lawyer, the application of the two sentences remains at the discretion of the authorities.
Iran’s Revolutionary Court has sentenced award-winning filmmaker Jafar Panahi to five years and one month in prison and ordered the confiscation of all his assets, his lawyer Mostafa Nili told the Iranian news outlet Emtedad. Nili said Tuesday that Branch 26 of Tehran’s Revolutionary Court also banned Panahi from leaving Iran and using social media for two years. The ruling was issued in absentia, without Panahi being notified of the hearing. The lawyer said Panahi learned of the new case after his bank accounts were frozen last week. Court documents described him as being outside Iran, although he had returned to the country during Iran’s war with the US and Israel earlier this year. Nili said an arrest warrant had also been issued for Panahi on a day when the filmmaker was attending a hearing in another case at the same court. He said Panahi currently faces three open cases. https://t.co/lvmllLu99I
— Iran International English (@IranIntl_En) October 27, 2026
The situation is all the more worrying since Jafar Panahi returned to Iran last spring, according to his lawyer. The filmmaker returned to his country shortly after the Oscars ceremony, where his latest film, A simple accidentwas nominated in the best international film category as a representative of France. Last week, after discovering that his client’s bank accounts had been suddenly frozen, Mostafa Nili went to the Tehran prosecutor’s office with the director. It was there that he learned of the existence of this new conviction. However, the court file indicated that Panahi resided abroad.
If he is still in Iran, the filmmaker risks not only being imprisoned, but also being unable to leave the country. His sentence to a two-year travel ban comes on top of the prison sentences to which he is now exposed.
For more than twenty years, Jafar Panahi has maintained conflicting relations with the Iranian authorities. In 2010, the filmmaker was banned from directing, speaking in the press and traveling abroad. Despite these restrictions, he continued to film clandestinely.
Director of internationally acclaimed films, including The Circle, Out of play, This is not a movie, Taxi Tehran And Bears don’t existPanahi won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 2025 for A simple accident.
