Dissident Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi said he will return to Iran after completing the Oscar campaign for his latest film, despite being sentenced in absentia this week to one year in prison on charges of propaganda against the state.
“This sentence happened in the middle of this process, but I will finish this campaign and go back to Iran as soon as possible after,” Variety magazine quoted Panahi as saying at the Marrakech Film Festival in Morocco.
“I have only one passport … the passport of my country, and I wish to keep it,” Panahi added. “Although I was given the opportunity, even in the hardest years, I never considered leaving my country and being a refugee elsewhere.”
Panahi’s remarks come after his lawyer, Mostafa Nili, announced the prison sentence issued against the filmmaker in absentia earlier this week.
Nili said the sentence includes a two-year travel ban and bars him from membership in political or social groups, adding that they plan to appeal.
Panahi, whose movies have repeatedly brought him into conflict with Iranian authorities, said he is aware of the risks of returning.
“I know my films don’t please the government,” he said. “But that’s not a reason for me not to go back to my country.”
Panahi’s latest film, It Was Just an Accident, inspired by his experience as a political prisoner, is France’s submission for the Oscars and screened at the Marrakech festival on Thursday.
It was filmed in secret in Iran and follows the moral journey of a group of former political prisoners who believe they have captured their torturer.
In May, Panahi received the Palme d’Or at the 78th Cannes Film Festival for the film.
Panahi has faced restrictions and arrests for more than a decade.
He was sentenced in 2010 to six years in prison and a 20-year ban on filmmaking, travel and giving interviews, though he continued to work in secret. In 2022, he was detained again and spent seven months in prison before launching a hunger strike that led to his release in early 2023.
