The United States, which has tense relations with Iran, has condemned Tehran's "continued efforts to prevent the exercise of freedom of expression".
Award-winning dissident Iranian film-maker Jafar Panahi, arrested last week in Tehran, must serve a six-year sentence previously handed to him in 2010, the judicial authority announced Tuesday.
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 "Taxi" in 2015, and best screenplay at Cannes for his film "Three Faces" in 2018.
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 "There Is No Evil".
"We urge the Iranian government to release all media workers, activists and peaceful protesters it has arbitrarily detained," a State Department spokesperson said.
France on Tuesday again called for Panahi's "immediate" release, decrying his "arbitrary arrest", a foreign ministry spokesperson said.
Last week the ministry had cited a "worrying deterioration in the situation of artists in Iran".
Iran has in recent weeks arrested several leading figures, including reformist politician Mostafa Tajzadeh, who was detained on July 8.
