Panahi tells Stewart he’ll return to Iran after Oscars despite prison sentence

Iranian Director Jafar Panahi Vows to Return Home Despite Prison Sentence

Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi told Jon Stewart on The Daily Show that he plans to return to Iran immediately after the Academy Awards on March 15, even though a one-year prison sentence awaits him. During the interview, which aired March 3, Panahi offered a stark reminder of the dangers facing artists under the Islamic Republic: “If you were to utter even one-hundredth of what you just expressed in Iran, the punishment would be death.”yahoo

Panahi’s film, It Was Just an Accident — a drama about former political prisoners who abduct a man they believe to be their torturer — is nominated for Best International Feature Film and Best Original Screenplay at the 98th Academy Awards. The film won the Palme d’Or at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival and was submitted as France’s official Oscar entry.abcnews

A Sentence Handed Down in Absentia

In December 2025, a Tehran court sentenced Panahi to one year in prison and a two-year travel ban for “propaganda activities against the system,” according to his lawyer Mostafa Nili, who announced plans to appeal. The ruling came while Panahi was in New York accepting three Gotham Awards for the film. It marked the 65-year-old director’s third sentence on similar charges.apnews

Panahi has repeatedly stated his intention to go back. “Not going back would mean accepting censorship, accepting for them to define where I make films, where I don’t make films,” he told ABC News. At the Marrakech Film Festival in December, he told the Associated Press: “I have only one passport — the passport of my country, and I wish to keep it.”abcnews

Co-Writer’s Arrest and Release

The human cost of dissent was underscored by the arrest of Panahi’s co-writer Mehdi Mahmoudian, who was detained in Tehran on February 1 after signing an open letter with 16 other activists condemning Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s role in the violent crackdown on nationwide protests. Panahi was among the signatories. Mahmoudian was released on bail after 17 days in custody, but his detention drew international condemnation weeks before the Oscars.nbcnews

Panahi told The New York Times that he had last spoken to Mahmoudian just hours before the arrest. “I sent him my final message at 4 AM. By noon the following day, I had not received a response.”nytimes

Filmmaking Under a Regime

On The Daily Show, Panahi described how Iranian filmmakers are unable to express even a fraction of what is said freely in American media, noting that a fellow filmmaker was killed during recent protests. Stewart’s interview followed a monologue criticizing U.S. military operations in Iran, lending the conversation an added gravity as Panahi spoke about the regime’s intolerance for peaceful protest.avclub

Panahi, who spent 86 days in Iran’s Evin prison in 2022 and has endured a 20-year filmmaking ban under the regime, dismissed the label of hero. “When you speak of heroism, you must ask, ‘Compared to what?’ If it’s in comparison to someone who has been imprisoned for 10 or 15 years, then I have only spent a few months in prison,” he said.yahoo