Filmmaker Panahi says Iran protests 'to move history forward'

Award-winning Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi said Wednesday that protests which have gripped his country in recent days aimed "to move history forward".

"Shared pain has now become a cry in the street," said the director who won the Cannes Film festival's top prize this year and has been nominated for an Oscar for his film "It Was Just an Accident".

"When there is nothing left to lose, fear falls away. Voices unite, the silence is broken, and there is no way back," he said on Instagram.

"This uprising is willpower that has decided to stay, to move forward, and to move history forward."

Spontaneous protests, driven by dissatisfaction at Iran's economic stagnation and galloping hyperinflation, began on Sunday in Tehran's largest mobile phone market where shopkeepers shuttered their businesses.

They have since built momentum, with students at 10 universities in the capital and in other cities, including Iran's most prestigious institutions, joining in on Tuesday.

The Mossad intelligence agency of Israel, Iran's regional archfoe, the same day said on social media it was "with you on the ground" in a message to Iranian protesters.

The latest demonstrations have not come close to the last major outbreak in 2022 triggered by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a young Iranian woman detained for allegedly flouting the country's dress code for women.

Panahi's latest film, filmed in Iran without permission, chronicles the story of five ordinary Iranians confronting a man they believe is their former jailor.

He has been sentenced to one year in prison over "propaganda activities" against the Islamic republic.

In mid-December, he was touring to promote the film, but said he nonetheless planned to return to Iran.