Ja’afar Panahi, the prominent Iranian filmmaker, has been sentenced to five years and one month in prison and the confiscation of all his assets.
Mostafa Nili, defence counsel for the prominent Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi, announced that Branch 26 of the Revolutionary Court of Tehran has sentenced his client to five years and one month of discretionary imprisonment (habs-e ta’ziri) and the confiscation of all his movable and immovable property. According to Nili, the court additionally imposed on Panahi a two-year foreign travel ban and a two-year prohibition from participating in social media activities.

In an interview with the news portal Emtedad, Nili reported the existence of multiple judicial cases against Panahi and noted that an in absentia judgment had been rendered in one of them.

According to the defence attorney, Panahi discovered last week that his bank accounts had been frozen. Following an inquiry by his legal counsel at the Enforcement of Judgments Office of the Culture and Media Prosecution Office, it was determined that he had been convicted in absentia—without appearing before the court—in a separate proceeding.

Nili clarified that in the court records of that proceeding, Panahi had been misidentified as a foreign resident, despite having returned to Iran on March 30. According to the attorney, Branch 16 of the Culture and Media Prosecution Office issued an arrest warrant for Panahi on May 20—the exact day the director was appearing before Branch 26 of the Revolutionary Court regarding another case.

Nili further stated that his client had also appeared before Branch 16 of the Investigation Unit at the Culture and Media Prosecution Office in August/September [the Persian month of Shahrivar], but despite this, he was not served notice regarding the trial date for the new case, and the judgment was issued in absentia.

According to Nili, Jafar Panahi currently faces three active judicial cases.

Panahi, director of the film It Was Just an Accident, won the Palme d’Or at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival. He had previously been sentenced in another case to one year in prison on charges of “propaganda activities against the system”.

The issuance of these recent sentences against the filmmaker—specifically the total confiscation of his assets along with foreign travel bans and prohibitions on social media participation—comes after he has faced repeated judicial prosecution, arrests, and professional bans over past years.