The filmmaker, imprisoned in Iran and then released in February, had been subject to a foreign travel ban since 2009, which has just been lifted by the country’s government, according to his wife.
Back to freedom for Jafar Panahi. After 14 years without being able to leave Iran, where he was imprisoned and then released last February, the Iranian filmmaker has seen his travel ban lifted by the government.
On Instagram, his wife, Tahereh Saeedi, welcomed the announcement: “Jafar’s ban has been lifted and finally we are going to travel together for a few days…”, she wrote in a post accompanied by a photo of her and her husband exiting an airport.
Six years in prison and ban on making films
After attending the funeral of a student gunned down during a protest in Iran in 2009, the country’s government issued Jafar Panahi an overseas travel ban.
A year later, the filmmaker rewarded at the Venice Film Festival (The circle2000), in Berlin (Taxi Tehran2015) or at the Cannes Film Festival (Three Faces2018), was also found guilty by the Iranian regime of producing “propaganda” against the Islamic Republic with these films, which earned him a six-year prison sentence and a ban on directing, writing films, traveling or even speaking in the media for 20 years.
In prison, however, the filmmaker continued to make films in secret, circulating his works clandestinely so that they could be presented at international film festivals. His latest film, No bearswas screened at the Venice Film Festival in 2022 and won the Special Jury Prize.
Many personalities arrested
Last July, Jafar Panahi was also arrested in Tehran court where he had gone to follow the hearing of another award-winning director, Mohammad Rasoulof, arrested a few days earlier and then released on January 7.
After having started a hunger strike to protest against the conditions of his detention, the Iranian director was finally released on bail in February 2023, after seven months in Evin prison in Tehran.
The personalities of the world of cinema are among the thousands people arrested in Iran as part of the crackdown on protests sparked by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a young Iranian Kurd arrested for allegedly breaking a strict dress code for women.
Actress Taraneh Alidoosti, who released images of herself not wearing an Islamic veil, was among those detained before being released in early January after almost three weeks of detention.
