Filmmaker Jafar Panahi’s lawyer, Mostafa Nili, says an Iranian court sentenced him in absentia to five years and one month in prison, with asset confiscation and two-year restrictions, in a case whose allegations authorities have not disclosed.
Nili told Iranian reformist outlet Emtedad that Branch 26 of Tehran’s Revolutionary Court issued the ruling. It orders the confiscation of all Panahi’s movable and immovable assets and bars him from travel and social-media activity for two years, Nili said.
Nili said Panahi received no notice of the hearing. Lawyers learned of the ruling after the filmmaker’s bank accounts were frozen the previous week, he said, and then visited the prosecutor’s office responsible for sentence enforcement.
Nili said Panahi had already returned to Iran on March 30, yet court records continued to describe him as abroad and unreachable. He also said Panahi has three ongoing cases. The allegations behind the new sentence have not been publicly identified.
The update follows EconoTimes’ earlier report on the sentence.
Panahi received a one-year prison sentence and a two-year travel ban in a separate December 2025 case over “propaganda activities against the regime,” according to Euronews. Euronews reported that the conviction was upheld on appeal.
The Festival de Cannes lists Panahi’s film It Was Just an Accident as the winner of the 2025 Palme d’Or. Euronews has also reported that Panahi spent 86 days in Evin prison during 2022 and 2023 before being released after a hunger strike.
