Retrial Verdict Upheld for Iranian Filmmaker Jafar Panahi
A Revolutionary Court in Tehran has completely confirmed a one-year prison sentence for prominent Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi, originally issued in absentia while he was outside the country. The conviction, on charges of spreading propaganda against the Islamic Republic of Iran, also includes a two-year travel ban. Additionally, Panahi is barred from participating in political and social groups and associations, according to his lawyer Mostafa Nili, who spoke to Iranian media outlet Emtedad on Sunday.
The ruling cites as its basis the making of an "underground and problematic film against the establishment," support for political prisoners, and backing of anti-government popular protests, including the "Woman, Life, Freedom" demonstrations.
The initial court decision against Panahi was handed down while he was overseas, promoting his film "A Simple Accident" and receiving awards at the Gotham Awards in New York.
After winning the 2025 Palme d'Or, Cannes Film Festival's highest honor, "A Simple Accident" was subsequently chosen to represent France at the Academy Awards.
Following the Oscars ceremony, Panahi returned to Iran on March 30, despite the outstanding in-absentia prison sentence.
Not the First Conviction for Jafar Panahi
For decades, the director has faced censorship and imprisonment in his home country of Iran, even though he never intended to become a political filmmaker.
"In my definition, a political filmmaker defends an ideology where the good follow it and the bad oppose it," the Iranian director told DW during the 2025 Cannes festival. "In my films, even those who behave badly are shaped by the system, not personal choice."
But for more than a decade, Panahi has had little choice. After supporting the opposition Green Movement protests, the director of "The White Balloon" and "The Circle" was given a 20-year ban on filmmaking and international travel by Iranian authorities in 2010. That didn't stop him.
Over the years, he discovered new methods to shoot, edit, and smuggle out his films—from converting his living room into a film 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 held in Tehran's notorious Evin prison. After nearly seven months and a hunger strike, he was released in February 2023. In a remarkable legal victory, Iran's Supreme Court overturned his original 2010 sentence. Panahi was legally free, but artistically still constrained by a system he refuses to submit to.
"To make a film in the official way in Iran, you have to submit your script to the Islamic Guidance Ministry for approval," he told DW. "This is something I cannot do. I made another clandestine film. 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 unveiled female characters in defiance of Iran's hijab law, the movie tells the story of a group of ex-prisoners who believe they've found the man who tortured them—and must decide whether to exact revenge. The taut, 24-hour drama unfolds like a psychological thriller.
Filmmaking as the Only Option
Despite a career defined by resistance, Panahi insists he's simply doing the only thing he knows how. "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 films."
That single-minded dedication is what kept him going, even at his lowest.
"I remember just before I was given this very heavy sentence of 20 years, banned from making films and from traveling, and I thought: 'What will I do now?' For a little 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 got my camera. I thought: 'This is not something they can take away from me, I can still take pictures of the clouds.'
"Those photos were later exhibited at the Centre Pompidou in Paris ... There's no way they can stop me from making films. If cinema is really what is sacred for you, what gives sense 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'm completely incapable of adjusting to another society," he said. "I had to be in Paris for three and a half months for post-production, and I thought I was going to die."
In Iran, he explained, filmmaking is a communal act of improvisation and trust. "At 2 a.m., I can call a colleague and say: 'That shot should be longer.' And he'll come join me and we'll work all night. In Europe, you can't work like this. I don't belong."
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 reflect the filmmaker's prison sentence being upheld.