FiscalFusion

Iran has sentenced acclaimed director Jafar Panahi to one year in prison in absentia and imposed a two-year travel ban after a Tehran court convicted him of “propaganda activities against the system,” according to his lawyer Mostafa Nili, who said he will appeal the ruling, even as Panahi was in New York City on Monday receiving three Gotham Awards for his film “It Was Just an Accident,” which also won the Palme d’Or at Cannes in September; Panahi, one of Iran’s most celebrated filmmakers, has spent the past two decades facing imprisonment, travel bans and house arrest yet continued working, filming his latest movie clandestinely in Iran after a seven-month imprisonment that ended in 2023 following a hunger strike, drawing on stories from fellow inmates for the revenge drama about former prisoners attempting to identify a man they believe could have been their torturer despite having been blindfolded in detention, and the film has been selected as France’s submission for the Academy Awards..