<p>Award-winning dissident Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi, arrested last week in Tehran, must serve a six-year sentence previously handed to him in 2010, the judicial authority announced Tuesday.</p>.<p>Panahi, 62, has won a number of awards at international festivals for films that have critiqued modern Iran, including the top prize in Berlin for <em>Taxi</em> in 2015, and best screenplay at Cannes for his film <em>Three Faces</em> in 2018.</p>.<p>He is the third director to be detained this month, alongside Mostafa Aleahmad and Mohammad Rasoulof, who won the Golden Bear in Berlin in 2020 with his film <em>There Is No Evil</em>.</p>.<p>"Panahi had been sentenced in 2010 to a total of six years in prison... and therefore he was entered into Evin detention centre to serve his sentence there", judiciary spokesman Massoud Setayeshi told reporters.</p>.<p>He was arrested in 2010, following his support for anti-government demonstrations.</p>.<p>He was convicted of "propaganda against the system", sentenced to six years in jail, banned from directing or writing films and blocked from leaving the country.</p>.<p>But he served only two months in jail in 2010, and was subsequently living on conditional release that could be revoked at any time.</p>.<p>Panahi was arrested again on July 11 after he went to the prosecutor's office to follow up on the situation of Rasoulof.</p>.<p>The arrests come after Panahi and Rasoulof denounced in May the arrests of several colleagues in their homeland in an open letter.</p>.<p>Despite the political pressures, Iran has a thriving film industry and the country's products regularly win awards at major international festivals.</p>.<p>Panahi's detention has sparked condemnation from fellow filmmakers.</p>.<p>Cannes film festival organisers said they "strongly condemn" the arrests as well as "the wave of repression evidently under way in Iran against its artists".</p>.<p>The Venice film festival called for the "immediate release" of the directors, while the Berlin film festival said it was "dismayed and outraged" at the arrest.</p>.<p>France's foreign ministry on Friday expressed concern at the "arbitrary" arrests of the filmmakers, citing a "worrying deterioration in the situation of artists in Iran".</p>
<p>Award-winning dissident Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi, arrested last week in Tehran, must serve a six-year sentence previously handed to him in 2010, the judicial authority announced Tuesday.</p>.<p>Panahi, 62, has won a number of awards at international festivals for films that have critiqued modern Iran, including the top prize in Berlin for <em>Taxi</em> in 2015, and best screenplay at Cannes for his film <em>Three Faces</em> in 2018.</p>.<p>He is the third director to be detained this month, alongside Mostafa Aleahmad and Mohammad Rasoulof, who won the Golden Bear in Berlin in 2020 with his film <em>There Is No Evil</em>.</p>.<p>"Panahi had been sentenced in 2010 to a total of six years in prison... and therefore he was entered into Evin detention centre to serve his sentence there", judiciary spokesman Massoud Setayeshi told reporters.</p>.<p>He was arrested in 2010, following his support for anti-government demonstrations.</p>.<p>He was convicted of "propaganda against the system", sentenced to six years in jail, banned from directing or writing films and blocked from leaving the country.</p>.<p>But he served only two months in jail in 2010, and was subsequently living on conditional release that could be revoked at any time.</p>.<p>Panahi was arrested again on July 11 after he went to the prosecutor's office to follow up on the situation of Rasoulof.</p>.<p>The arrests come after Panahi and Rasoulof denounced in May the arrests of several colleagues in their homeland in an open letter.</p>.<p>Despite the political pressures, Iran has a thriving film industry and the country's products regularly win awards at major international festivals.</p>.<p>Panahi's detention has sparked condemnation from fellow filmmakers.</p>.<p>Cannes film festival organisers said they "strongly condemn" the arrests as well as "the wave of repression evidently under way in Iran against its artists".</p>.<p>The Venice film festival called for the "immediate release" of the directors, while the Berlin film festival said it was "dismayed and outraged" at the arrest.</p>.<p>France's foreign ministry on Friday expressed concern at the "arbitrary" arrests of the filmmakers, citing a "worrying deterioration in the situation of artists in Iran".</p>