For most filmmakers, completing a film means preparing for festivals, interviews and the nervous wait for reviews. For Jafar Panahi, making a film has repeatedly come with the possibility of arrest, imprisonment and another government order demanding that he stop. Now the Iranian director reportedly faces another prison sentence.
A Tehran Revolutionary Court has sentenced Panahi in absentia to five years and one month in prison, according to his lawyer, Mostafa Nili. The court also reportedly ordered the confiscation of Panahi’s assets and imposed two-year bans on travelling and using social media. The precise charges behind the latest ruling remain unclear.
Nili told the Iranian reformist news outlet Emtedad that he only discovered the judgement after Panahi’s bank accounts were frozen. The lawyer reportedly went to the prosecutor’s office with his client and learned that the court had already issued the verdict. Variety reports that authorities tried the director in absentia. His lawyer also claims that officials did not inform Panahi about the hearing or give him the opportunity to defend himself.
That alone raises serious questions.
A court has reportedly imposed more than five years in prison, taken control of a filmmaker’s property and restricted his ability to travel or communicate online. Yet the public still does not have a clear explanation of the charges. Am I the only one that’s flabbergasted by this?
The new sentence is separate from an earlier one-year prison term issued against Panahi for what Iranian authorities described as propaganda against the state. A court upheld that conviction in June. It also included a travel ban and restrictions on political and social activity. Further reports claim Panahi received the earlier sentence while his film It Was Just an Accident collected international awards. He made the film secretly in Iran after spending seven months in prison.
The story follows a group of former prisoners who encounter a man they believe may have tortured them. But because their captors kept them blindfolded, they cannot be certain that they have found the right person. That uncertainty forces them to confront anger, trauma and the difference between justice and revenge. Panahi drew inspiration from stories he heard while imprisoned.
The film won the Palme d’Or at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival. France later selected it for the Academy Awards, where it received two nominations. The international recognition made Panahi more visible, but that visibility has not protected him from further punishment at home. Panahi returned to Iran on 30 March 2026 after attending the Academy Awards. Reports say the latest case file incorrectly described him as living outside the country. His decision to return may be difficult for some people to understand. He knew that another prison sentence remained possible. But Iran is his home and the place where his stories exist. Leaving permanently would protect him from immediate imprisonment, but it would also separate him from the people and circumstances that shape his work.
For more than two decades, Panahi has continued making films despite arrests, imprisonment and restrictions on his career. Iranian authorities banned him from filmmaking for 20 years in 2010. He responded by creating This Is Not a Film, a documentary about his life under legal restrictions. The film later reached the Cannes Film Festival and became one of the clearest examples of Panahi refusing to allow the state to decide whether he could remain an artist. His other work includes Taxi, No Bears, The Circle and Offside. These films often examine people whose lives become restricted by political rules, social expectations and institutions with the power to decide where they may go.
That connection between Panahi’s art and his own life has become impossible to separate. But there is also a danger in discussing his courage only through the language of cinema. Prison is not an artistic metaphor. Asset confiscation is not a dramatic plot development, and a travel ban does not become less serious because the person facing it has won major awards.
The consequences are real.
The latest ruling remains based on reporting from Panahi’s lawyer, and several important details are still missing. It is unclear what charges produced the five-year sentence or whether authorities will immediately enforce it. Variety reports that the implementation of both prison terms is discretionary.
What is clear is that Panahi once again faces punishment while continuing to work as a filmmaker. His films have travelled around the world even when he could not. They have screened at major festivals, won the industry’s highest honours and reached audiences far beyond Iran.
Authorities have repeatedly attempted to stop him from making films. So far, they have only given him more reasons to continue.
