Jafar Panahi has been given an “unusually heavy sentence,” says his lawyer—six years in prison, a 20-year ban on traveling abroad, and a 20-year ban on directing films, writing screenplays or participating in interviews with any media
Arrested twice since the post-election protests began, the 50-year-old Panahi was tried last month for “colluding with the intention to commit crimes against the country’s national security and propaganda against the Islamic Republic.”
News reports said his chief crime was to start making a film, without a state license, that would have been critical of the regime.
Panahi said, “The main question is: why should it be a crime to make a movie? A finished film—well, it can be banned but not the director.”
“When a filmmaker does not make films it is as if he is jailed. Even when he is freed from the small jail, he finds himself wandering in a larger jail,” Panahi said in September.
Many international cinema figures including Tim Burton, Michael Moore and Oliver Stone have come out in support of Panahi over the last year. After his second arrest in March, Panahi went on a hunger strike and then was released on bail of $200,000 in May. While he was still in prison, the Cannes Film Festival invited Panahi to join its judge’s panel and left an empty seat on its gala stage in honor of the director banned from coming.
The Berlin Film Festival, another of Europe’s top film showcases, has now also invited Panahi to join its jury in February. In a statement earlier this month, the event’s director, Dieter Kosslick, said, “We hope Jafar Panahi will be able to attend the festival and perform this important task on the international jury of the 61st Berlinale.” Although not in prison at the time, Panahi was prohibited from attending the last Berlin Film Festival in February as well as the 2010 Venice Film Festival in September.
Panahi is not the only director who must now serve prison time in Iran. Also sentenced to six years was Mohammad Rasoulof, a young director who had been filming with Panahi before his arrest, said Rasoulof’s lawyer, Iman Mirzadeh.