Iranian Regime Sentences Filmmaker Jafar Panahi to Five Years in Prison, Orders Asset Confiscation

TEHRAN, Oct 27: Iran's Revolutionary Court has sentenced award-winning filmmaker Jafar Panahi to five years and one month in prison and ordered the confiscation of all his assets, his lawyer Mostafa Nili said, according to Iranian news outlet Emtedad.

Nili said Tuesday that Branch 26 of Tehran's Revolutionary Court also imposed a two-year ban on Panahi leaving Iran and using social media. The ruling was issued in absentia, and Panahi was not notified of the court hearing, the lawyer said.

Panahi reportedly learned about the new case last week after his bank accounts were frozen. Although court documents described him as being outside Iran, Nili said the filmmaker had returned to the country during the war between Iran, the United States and Israel earlier this year.

The lawyer also said an arrest warrant had been issued for Panahi on a day when the filmmaker was attending a hearing in another case before the same court. Panahi currently faces three pending cases, according to Nili.

Panahi's latest sentence comes after a separate case in which he was sentenced to one year in prison on charges of propaganda against the Islamic Republic.

His film It Was Just an Accident won the Palme d'Or at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival and received two Oscar nominations.