Iran jails director Jafar Panahi and stops him making films for 20 years

Iran jails director Jafar Panahi and stops him making films for 20 years

Acclaimed film-maker who supported opposition green movement also banned from foreign travel or speaking to media

Jafar Panahi, pictured in Tehran this August, has been banned from writing scripts or making films for 20 years. Photograph: Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty Images

 

Saeed Kamali Dehghan

The Guardian, Mon 20 Dec 2010 18.47 GMT

 

The acclaimed Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi was sentenced to six years in prison today, and banned from directing and producing films for the next 20 years, his lawyer said.

Panahi, an outspoken supporter of Iran's opposition green movement, was convicted of gathering, colluding and propaganda against the regime, Farideh Gheyrat told the Iranian state news agency ISNA.

"He is therefore sentenced to six years in prison and also he is banned for 20 years from making any films, writing any scripts, travelling abroad and also giving any interviews to the media including foreign and domestic news organisations," she said. Gheyrat said she would appeal against the conviction.

Panahi won the Camera d'Or award at the Cannes film festival in 1995 for his debut feature, The White Balloon, and took the Golden Lion prize at Venice for his 2000 drama, The Circle. His other films include Crimson Gold and Offside. He is highly regarded around the world but his films are banned at home.

Hamid Dabashi, a professor of Iranian studies at Columbia university, told the Guardian the sentence showed Iran's leaders could not tolerate the arts. "This is a catastrophe for Iran's cinema," he said. "Panahi is now exactly in the most creative phase of his life and by silencing him at this sensitive time, they are killing his art and talent.

"Iran is sending a clear message by this sentence that they don't have any tolerance and can't bear arts, philosophy or anything like that. This is a sentence against the whole culture of Iran. They want the artists to sit at their houses and stop creating art. This is a catastrophe for a whole nation."

Panahi, 49, was initially arrested in July 2009 after participating in a mourning ceremony for the protesters killed in the aftermath of the disputed presidential election. He was released shortly afterwards but was denied permission to leave the country. In February 2010, he was arrested along with his family and colleagues, and taken to Tehran's notorious Evin prison.

Muhammad Rasoulof, one of the film-makers who was arrested at the same time, was also sentenced to six years in jail today.

Senior Hollywood figures including Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola, and Juliette Binoche condemned his arrest. Binoche held up Pahani's name in protest at the Cannes festival.

In May, he was released on $200,000 (£129,000) bail after several days on hunger strike. He has since been denied permission to attend film festivals where he was invited as a judge, including a recent invitation from the Berlin film festival.

In an interview in September, Panahi said: "When a film-maker 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."