Venice Golden Lion winner Jafar Panahi has become the third leading Iranian filmmaker to be arrested in recent days.

The arrest was confirmed on Monday by producer Kaveh Farnam and by the Mehr news agency. It follows the arrests of Golden Bear-winning director Mohammad Rasoulof and fellow filmmaker Mostafa Al-Ahmad on Friday (July 8).

It’s not yet clear for how long Panahi will be detained. He went to the prosecutors’ office with colleagues and lawyers to inquire about the earlier arrest of Rasoulof and was himself detained.

Meanwhile, speaking from Dubai, Farnam has given details of the circumstances in which Rasoulof was taken into custody on Friday – including how his arrest was announced by authorities before it had actually taken place. 

Rasoulof is currently in solitary confinement in Iran’s notorious Evin prison; Al-Ahmad is in the same prison.

Rasoulof has faced travel bans and the threat of prison sentences for several years. His current arrest appears related to a sentence imposed on him in 2016 when he made the film The Man Of Integrity, which won the Un Certain Regard award at Cannes Film Festival. The filmmaker’s lawyers recently called on the authorities either to enforce the sentence or to drop it.