Iran has sentenced acclaimed filmmaker Jafar Panahi to a year in prison, after accusing him of spreading propaganda against the Tehran regime.
The director, who was sentenced in his absence, also received a two-year ban from leaving Iran, his lawyer Mostafa Nili said. But the news came as Panahi was in New York to receive three Gotham Awards for his film It Was Just An Accident, which also won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in May.
The film depicts five Iranians confronting a man they believed tortured them in jail. Panahi was convicted on charges of “propaganda activities against the system", Mr Nili said in a post on X. He added that the ruling would be appealed.
Panahi, 65, has not yet commented on the sentence and there was no indication of whether he planned to return to Iran.
He is among the most celebrated Iranian directors and has continued making films despite being jailed repeatedly, banned from travelling and placed under house arrest over the past 20 years.
He filmed It Was Just An Accident secretly in Iran after spending seven months in prison. That sentence ended in 2023, after he went on a hunger strike.
Panahi said he drew from stories of fellow inmates for the film. France selected the movie as its submission for the Academy Awards. Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot called the film a "gesture of resistance against the Iranian regime's oppression".
In response, Iran's Foreign Ministry summoned the senior French diplomat in Tehran on Sunday, state news agency Irna reported. Tehran is under widespread sanctions for cracking down on dissent, most notably after anti-regime protests that followed the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini in police custody.
