Iranian justice has sentenced dissident filmmaker Jafar Panahi, Palme d’Or winner at Cannes, in absentia to one year in prison for “propaganda activities” against the State, announced Monday 1East December his lawyer at Agence France-Presse (AFP).
This sentence is accompanied by a two-year travel ban and membership in any political or social group, said Mr.e Mostafa Nili, adding that he intends to appeal. He did not give details on the exact nature of what is being accused of his client, who is currently abroad.
The 65-year-old director won the prestigious award at the Cannes Film Festival last May for his film A simple accident. After years of not being able to leave Iran, Jafar Panahi, a figure of the new wave of Iranian cinema with multiple international awards, was able to travel to a festival for the first time in fifteen years.
In recent weeks, he has toured the United States to promote his feature film, chosen to represent France at the Oscars. Made clandestinely, A simple accidentwhere a torturer from the Islamic Republic finds himself in the hands of his former prisoners, almost never came to fruition. Filming was interrupted by the police, before being hastily wrapped up a few weeks later.
No exile
Jafar Panahi never decided to go into exile, preferring to stay in his country against all odds, to examine social injustices or the place of women in his works. Among his most acclaimed films is Taxi Tehranfilmed from inside a taxi, for which he received the Golden Bear at the Berlinale in 2015. Iranian conservatives were furious.
The Cannes Festival has supported him and offered him a platform since his beginnings: his first feature film, The White Balloonhad received the Golden Camera in 1995. His love of cinema, this son of an artisan, born in Tehran on July 11, 1960 and having grown up in the poor neighborhoods of the capital, has paid for his freedom several times: he was incarcerated twice, eighty-six days in 2010 and almost seven months between 2022 and 2023. He had started a hunger strike to obtain his release.
While some of his supporters feared difficulties upon his return to Tehran in May, Jafar Panahi was acclaimed by admirers, without being worried. This reception contrasted with the cold reaction of Iranian state media and power leaders to this first Iranian Palme d’Or since The Taste of Cherry, in 1997, from the late Abbas Kiarostami.
Last year, the reward eluded another Iranian dissident, Mohammad Rasoulof, who had to settle for a special prize and then remained in exile after a conviction for “collusion against national security”.
