Jafar Panahi faces new Tehran retrial over anti-regime propaganda charges

Jafar Panahi, one of Iran’s most internationally recognized filmmakers, faced a new retrial in Tehran on May 20 as Branch 26 of the Islamic Revolutionary Court reopened a case over propaganda charges against the state. The hearing came after an earlier ruling that sentenced Panahi in absentia to one year in prison and a two-year filmmaking and travel ban, underscoring how quickly Iran has moved from celebrating his global success to renewing pressure at home.

Panahi returned to Iran on March 30 after the Oscars, despite saying he knew he could face consequences. That decision put him back inside the country just as the state revived legal action against him, turning his homecoming into the latest chapter in a long confrontation between an acclaimed artist and the authorities who have repeatedly targeted him. Judge Iman Afshari was reported to be presiding over the retrial, adding another layer of political tension because he has also been sanctioned by the European Union over harsh sentences against dissidents.

The case has become a test of how Iran treats a filmmaker whose standing abroad has only grown with each clash at home. Panahi won the 2025 Palme d’Or at Cannes for It Was Just an Accident, and the film went on to represent France in the Academy Awards’ international feature race. He was outside Iran when the film won in Cannes and when it later earned its Oscar nomination, a contrast that captured his unusual position: globally celebrated, yet repeatedly prosecuted by his own state.

Panahi’s legal battle stretches back years. He was arrested in July 2022, held in Tehran’s Evin Prison until February 2023, and released on bail after a hunger strike. In 2023, Iran’s Supreme Court overturned his original 2010 sentence and ordered a retrial. His earlier punishment had included 86 days in Evin Prison and the long-running threat of bans that limited his work and movement.

Even while imprisoned, Panahi kept making art. He worked with activist Mehdi Mahmoudian on the screenplay for It Was Just an Accident, a film about former Iranian political prisoners confronting a suspected former torturer. That story, and Panahi’s own prosecution, have made the film feel inseparable from the political reality it reflects. The retrial now signals that in Iran, cinema remains a field of dissent, and dissent remains a punishable act.