Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi, one of the most influential and persecuted voices in his country’s contemporary cinema, said that Iran does not need U.S. intervention to bring about political change and reaffirmed that he will return home even if a new trial and a possible prison sentence await him. “It doesn’t matter what happens to me… I have to go back,” he said in remarks to Variety from the United States, where he is promoting his latest film, It Was Just an Accident, winner of the Palme d’Or and France’s submission for the international feature Oscar.

Panahi is closely following the new wave of protests that has shaken Iran since late December and that, according to Amnesty International, has left at least 28 protesters and bystanders dead in cities across the country. The director believes this cycle of demonstrations may differ from previous ones and that the Islamic regime has already entered a terminal phase. “From any perspective—political, ideological, economic or environmental—the regime has fallen. All that remains is a shell sustained by force,” he said.

The filmmaker, who has been arrested several times by Iranian authorities and spent months in prison after signing a 2022 manifesto against police violence, was recently sentenced in absentia to one year in jail and a two-year travel ban, accused of carrying out “propaganda activities” against the system. The sentence is linked to both his cinematic work and his public activism. Although an appeal hearing was held in early January, Panahi said he still does not know the outcome and expressed skepticism about the independence of Iran’s judiciary, which he described as subordinate to political decisions.

During his stay in the United States, Panahi has taken part in screenings and audience discussions in cities including New York, Chicago, Boston and San Francisco, where he noted the strong presence of non-Iranian viewers. For the director, this international visibility contrasts sharply with years of censorship and bans that prevented him from making and releasing films in his own country after 2010, forcing him to work clandestinely on films now regarded as milestones of world cinema.

At the same time, Panahi recently published a statement on social media signed by 184 figures from film, sports and other sectors of Iranian society, condemning the repression of the protests and defending freedom of expression. According to Panahi, the appeal was the result of days of coordination and reflects a shared belief that “there has to be a change.”

Asked about statements by former U.S. President Donald Trump, who said he hopes to “make Iran great again” and threatened intervention if protesters continue to be killed, Panahi was blunt: change, he said, cannot come from outside. “Until people themselves decide to change things from within, nothing will work. International support can help, but the will has to come from inside the country,” he stressed.

Despite the personal risk, the filmmaker insisted that his decision to return to Iran is unwavering. “I’m someone who needs to be in his country, to breathe there and work there. Even if they want to enforce the sentence, let them. Nothing will change my mind,” he said. For Panahi, the real question is not why he should go back, but why citizens should be the ones to leave. “We are the ones entitled to our country. It is the regime that has to go, because it has already fallen,” he concluded.