Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi’s clandestinely filmed It Was Just an Accident was shortlisted on Monday for four major Golden Globe awards, even as he faces a new prison sentence in Iran after being convicted in absentia by a Revolutionary Court.
After winning the prestigious Palme d'Or at this year's Cannes Film Festival, Panahi’s film has now been nominated for Best Motion Picture (Drama), Best Non-English Language Film, Best Director and Best Screenplay at the Golden Globes 2026.
Panahi’s film will compete in the Best Motion Picture (Drama) category alongside Frankenstein, Hamnet, The Secret Agent, Sentimental Value, and Sinners.
In the Best Director category, he is nominated alongside Paul Thomas Anderson for One Battle After Another, Ryan Coogler for Sinners, Guillermo del Toro for Frankenstein, Joachim Trier for Sentimental Value and Chloé Zhao for Hamnet.
Shot secretly in Tehran, the film has already been selected by France as its official submission to the 2026 Oscars and will also represent France at the Golden Globes.
Last week, Iranian lawyer Mostafa Nili announced that Branch 26 of the Revolutionary Court in Tehran sentenced Panahi in absentia to one year in prison.
The verdict cited “propaganda against the state” and imposed a two-year travel ban and a ban on political or social group membership.
Panahi, a long-time critic of the Islamic Republic, said he plans to return to Iran despite the new ruling. The filmmaker has previously been detained and restricted from travel but continued to make movies that later received major awards at Cannes, Berlin and Venice.
The production was carried out under tight constraints inside the capital, continuing Panahi’s long pattern of making films despite restrictions, surveillance and repeated bans on his professional activity.
It Was Just an Accident follows Panahi’s established cinematic approach—minimalist storytelling, non-professional actors and a blend of documentary and fiction.
His earlier works, including Taxi and No Bears, were also created while he was banned from filmmaking and travel, drawing international support for his case.
Speaking at a ceremony marking Student Day, Pezeshkian addressed the controversy surrounding the preferential access system, which drew widespread criticism after a November update to X revealed that numerous journalists, officials and pro-government figures were using unfiltered connections.
“We have instructed that these white internet lines be turned black as well, to show what will happen to people if this blackness continues,” he said.
Pezeshkian has repeatedly promised to lift filtering, a key pledge of his 2024 presidential campaign. On Sunday, he again suggested that political constraints lie beyond his control. “It is not enough for me to simply order the lifting of filtering. If it could be solved by instruction, we would have done it on the first day,” he said.
The comments came as government spokeswoman Fatemeh Mohajerani said that the administration seeks “free internet for all,” despite saying last year that no such promise had been made. Instagram, X, Telegram, and some other platforms remain blocked more than a year into Pezeshkian’s term.
A stalled pledge
Filtering reform was central to Pezeshkian’s campaign, when he said he would “risk his neck” to fix it. Yet in his first meeting of the Supreme Cyberspace Council he emphasized implementing the Supreme Leader’s directives on internet governance rather than easing restrictions and ordered action against the flourishing trade in VPNs.
Since then, senior officials have offered varying timelines. In December, Majid Farahani from the presidential office said filtering would be removed in three phases by the end of the year. The newspaper Farhikhtegan later reported consensus among Iran’s three branches of government to move from blocking toward “smart restrictions,” indicating the system is being recalibrated rather than dismantled.
Public anger intensified after revelations of the white SIM scheme, which critics said exposed a tiered access system contradicting the government’s rhetoric about digital equality.
In a letter addressed to Google, Meta, YouTube and Amazon Web Services, the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations with the Iranian People warned that Iran’s widening use of AI-driven surveillance, recurrent shutdowns and a “white SIM card” scheme for officials had created a two-tier digital system isolating ordinary citizens.
The Iranian government enforces some of the world’s toughest online restrictions, blocking platforms such as X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, and Telegram for the general public. Most people rely on slow, unreliable VPNs that authorities routinely disrupt.
By contrast, X's new location feature recently revealed that select users receive government-issued SIM cards or whitelisted connections to bypass national filtering and throttling altogether.
The issue drew wide attention over the past few weeks, when the X feature revealed numerous pro-government figures were posting from inside Iran without VPNs – despite long claiming they used the same circumvention tools as ordinary citizens.
The disclosures triggered heavy public criticism, with many describing the system as “digital apartheid” or a “caste-based internet” that rewards political loyalty and entrenches inequality.
EU says firms must bolster anti-censorship tools
Hannah Neumann, who chairs the EU delegation, said a free internet remains the only barrier against propaganda and intimidation. “Technology companies are the guardians of this freedom, and now is the time to take their responsibility seriously,” Neumann said, according to a copy of the letter obtained by Euronews.
She added that companies were capable of measures that “ensure these voices are not silenced.”
Deputy chair Bart Groothuis said digital repression had become central to Iran’s authoritarian model. “By supporting tools to circumvent filters, we can improve secure communication and give Iranians access to the free internet,” he said.
The letter urged firms to fund open-source VPN and censorship-bypass projects, expand encrypted communication features and develop in-app proxies to keep users connected during outages. It also asked Amazon Web Services and human-rights–oriented VPN providers to offer free or discounted server space to stabilize services for Iranian users.
European legislators pressed Google to continue backing Jigsaw, Outline VPN and its SDK, and to consider integrating these tools into major apps. Meta was asked to embed filter-bypass technologies into Instagram, Facebook and Threads. Companies were also urged to provide simple procedures for appealing blocked accounts and to increase cooperation with digital-rights groups.
US lawmakers pursue parallel push
In Washington, lawmakers introduced the FREEDOM Act on Thursday, which would require the secretary of state, the FCC and the Treasury to assess technologies capable of supporting unfiltered internet access for Iranians.
Representative Claudia Tenney highlighted the potential of satellite-to-mobile systems that could “bypass the limitations of censorship and government networks.” The feasibility review will also evaluate UAV-based platforms and counter-jamming tools.
Representative Dave Min, whose district includes a large Iranian-American community, said promoting internet freedom strengthens global family ties while confronting authoritarian practices.
