Iranian authorities released imprisoned filmmaker Jafar Panahi on bail Tuesday, according to reports on state TV and in the Associated Press.
Panahi, whose two-month detention came on vague charges that he was making an anti-government film, began a hunger strike about a week ago. He was reportedly released on $200,000 bail after the Tehran prosecutor met with him in the city’s Evin prison.
The 49-year-old director had supported the opposition in the disputed 2009 election in which Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared president. Though his wife, he has denied making a film against the regime.
In a recent letter, he claimed that he had “been subjected to ill treatment” in prison, and had been threatened with the imprisonment of his entire family.
Panahi’s films, which include “The White Balloon,” “The Circle” and “Crimson Gold,” have been banned in Iran for the past decade.
His imprisonment was a frequent topic at the recent Cannes Film Festival, which gave one of its top awards to another Iranian filmmaker, Abbas Kiarostami. Said Kiarostami at a press conference, “The fact that a filmmaker has been imprisoned, that is, of course, intolerable … How can a filmmaker be held for a film and even a film that has not even made?”
When she won the best actress award for Kiarostami’s “Certified Copy,” Juliette Binoche help up a sign bearing Panahi’s name.
On May 3, with Ahmadinejad was in New York, 19 prominent filmmakers released a statement decrying the imprisonment. It read, in part, “We (the undersigned) stand in solidarity with a fellow filmmaker, condemn this detention, and strongly urge the Iranian government to release Mr. Panahi immediately … Like artists everywhere, Iran’s filmmakers should be celebrated, not censored, repressed, and imprisoned.”
Among the signatories: Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola, Joel and Ethan Coen, Robert De Niro, Ang Lee, Terrence Malick, Michael Moore, Martin Scorsese and Oliver Stone.
Getty Images photos by Carlo Allegri (Panahi) and Sean Gallup (Binoche).
