Palme d’Or-winning filmmaker Jafar Panahi has been sentenced in absentia in Iran to one year in prison and a travel ban, according to his lawyer via the AFP news agency.
Panahi’s lawyer, Mostafa Nili, said the sentence includes a two-year travel ban and prohibition of Panahi from membership of any political or social groups. He added that they would file an appeal.
The charges against the filmmaker were that he had engaged in “propaganda activities” against the state, but Nili did not elaborate.
Panahi was recently in the U.S. to promote his Cannes-winning film “It Was Just an Accident,” and is due to attend the Marrakech Film Festival on Thursday, where the film screens. He is a resident of France. The film was selected by France as its submission for the Academy Awards in the international feature film category, and is expected to make the shortlist.
In “It Was Just an Accident” five former inmates contemplate whether to exact revenge on a man they believe to be their former jailer.
The director has had frequent run-ins with the Iranian authorities.
In 2010, he was barred from making films and from leaving Iran after supporting anti-government protests and making films critical of the country.
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He was later convicted of “propaganda against the system,” and sentenced to six years in jail but served only two months before being released on bail.
Despite the ban on filmmaking, he shot the documentary “This Is Not a Film,” which was released in 2011, and “Taxi,” in which Panahi acted as a taxi driver, came out in 2015.
In 2022, he was arrested in connection with protests by a group of filmmakers but was released about seven months later.
From Variety US