At 62, he is one of Iran's most awarded filmmakers.

Jafar Panahi, who notably won the screenplay prize at Cannes in 2018 with "Three Faces", three years after the Golden Bear in Berlin for "Taxi Tehran", was arrested on Monday July 11 in Tehran while he arrived at the prosecutor's office in the capital to follow up on another director's file.

The Iranian authorities had already arrested two filmmakers, Mohammad Rasoulof and Mostafa Aleahmad, on Friday, accused of "disturbing public order".

According to the Mehr news agency, "there is still no information on the reason for Panahi's arrest".

Sentenced for "propaganda against the regime" after supporting the 2009 protest movement against the re-election of the ultra-conservative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, he was arrested in 2010 and then sentenced to six years in prison and a 20-year ban on directing or writing films, traveling or expressing oneself in the media.

However, he continued to work and live in Iran.

Two other directors arrested

Mohammad Rasoulof, also awarded abroad, and Mostafa Aleahmad were arrested on Friday.

They are accused of encouraging protests after the deadly collapse of a building in the south-west of the country in May, according to the official Irna news agency.

After the tragedy, a group of Iranian filmmakers led by Mohammad Rasoulof published an open letter at the end of May calling on the security forces "to lay down their arms" in the face of anger at the "corruption" and "incompetence" of officials.

Jafar Panahi and Mohammad Rasoulof had also denounced in mid-May with other Iranian filmmakers and actors the arrest of several of their colleagues in Iran.

Repression and censorship constitute a "violation of freedom of expression" and "reduce the safety of directors to the minimum", they denounced in an open letter.

Support for the Cannes and Berlin festivals

The Cannes Film Festival gave them its support.

Its leadership “strongly condemns these arrests as well as the wave of repression visibly underway in Iran against its artists, and demands the immediate release of Mohammad Rasoulof, Mostafa Aleahmad and Jafar Panahi,” the protest wrote in a statement.

The organizers of the Berlinale, which awarded Mohammad Rasoulof the supreme distinction in 2020, protested last week against the arrest of the filmmaker and his colleague, demanding the release of the two artists.

Mohammad Rasoulof, 50, won the Golden Bear in Berlin in 2020 for his film 'The Devil Doesn't Exist', but was unable to travel to Germany.

His passport had been confiscated after his previous feature film in 2017, "A man of integrity", presented at Cannes, where he won the prize in the category "Un certain regard".

In recent times, the Iranian authorities have carried out numerous arrests, including a figure of the reform movement, Mostafa Tajzadeh, arrested on Friday on the charge of "activities against state security".

With AFP

The summary of the

France 24 week invites you to come back to the news that marked the week

I subscribe

Take international news everywhere with you!

Download the France 24 app

google-play-badge_FR