As Hollywood’s awards season opened in New York, Iranian director Jafar Panahi received both celebration and fresh legal peril. On Monday night he appeared at the Gotham Awards to accept honors for his film It Was Just an Accident, while earlier his lawyer said Panahi had been sentenced in absentia in Iran to one year in prison.
Lawyer Mostafa Nili posted the verdict on X and told Agence France-Presse the sentence also includes a two-year travel ban and a prohibition on associating with political groups, citing charges of “propaganda activities against the system.” Nili said Panahi’s legal team plans to appeal the ruling.
Panahi has been promoting It Was Just an Accident across the U.S. since the film, which won the Palme d’Or at Cannes in May, has drawn international attention. An Iran–France–Luxembourg co-production and France’s submission for the best international feature Oscar, the film follows a group of former prisoners who contemplate revenge against a man they believe served as their jailer. Like many Iranian filmmakers working under severe restrictions, Panahi shot the film in secret.
At the Gotham Awards, widely viewed as the start of awards season, Panahi won three major prizes, including best international feature and best director; he also accepted best original screenplay through an interpreter. In his remarks he dedicated the screenplay award to filmmakers who keep “the camera rolling in silence” despite lacking support and often risking everything—an acknowledgement of artists who create even while denied the right to be seen.
This recent sentence is not Panahi’s first clash with Iranian authorities. Arrested in 2010, he was given a 20-year ban on filmmaking but continued to work covertly, producing works such as the documentary This Is Not a Film (2011)—which was smuggled out on a USB stick—and Taxi (2015). In 2022 he was detained for seven months after seeking information about charges against fellow filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof and was released in 2023 following a hunger strike.
Panahi remains one of Iran’s most internationally honored directors, among only a handful to win top prizes at Cannes, Venice and Berlin. Renowned for resisting censorship, he has repeatedly said he cannot imagine leaving Iran permanently and continues to make films there while mentoring the next generation of Iranian filmmakers.