“It Was Just an Accident” director Jafar Panahi has been sentenced to 61 months in prison by the Iranian Revolutionary Court on top of a previous one-year sentence, according to the reformist media outlet Emtedad.
Panahi has been in Iran since the end of March after attending the Academy Awards, where “It Was Just An Accident” had been nominated for Best International Film and Best Original Screenplay. The film also won the Palme D’Or at the Cannes Film Festival last year.
It is unclear when or even if Panahi would be incarcerated, as the in absentia sentence handed down by the court is discretionary. The court has also ordered the confiscation of Panahi’s movable and immovable assets as well as a two-year ban on using social media and traveling outside Iran. Panahi’s lawyer, Mostafa Nili, told Emtedad that Panahi had discovered the sentence when he found that his bank account had been frozen.
It is also unclear what Panahi has been charged with in connection to the sentence, though the filmmaker has clashed with his country’s authorities since he was banned by the courts from making movies for 20 years in 2010. Despite this, Panahi has made “It Was Just an Accident” and other films critical of the Iranian government in secret.
Those films led to a one-year prison sentence handed down on charges of creating “propaganda against the Islamic Republic” that was upheld this past June. While he served seven months in prison in connection to anti-government protests, Panahi has largely avoided the sentences stemming from his filmmaking thanks in part to his global profile in the cinematic world.
Panahi is one of only four filmmakers to win the Palme D’Or at Cannes, the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. He received the Golden Lion in 2000 for his film “The Circle” and the Golden Bear in 2015 for “Taxi,” in which Panahi disguised himself as a Tehran taxi driver and conversed with fellow Iranians while offering free rides.
