‘My Favourite Cake’ directors given suspended prison sentence in Iran for showing unveiled woman

Iranian directors Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeha have been given a 14-month suspended jail sentence by an Iranian court on charges that include alleged production of obscene content in their Berlinale-premiering film My Favourite Cake – our joint Number 1 sinema of 2024 alongside Mohammad Rasoulof’s Oscar nominated film The Seed of the Sacred Fig.   

After months of interrogations and travel bans over the past two years — which prevented them from attending the 2024 Berlin premiere – Moghaddam and Sanaeeha had been charged with making a sinema labeled as “obscene” and “offending public morality.” They were also accused of “propaganda against the regime” and other charges claiming the sinema was “unlawfully” screened without the Iranian authorities’ permits for distribution.  

The Iranian court also convicted My Favourite Cake producer Gholamreza Mousavi to the same sentence as the directors, which also includes a fine of 400 million Iranian Rials (€8,240). 

My Favourite Cake follows a lonely septuagenarian widow Mahin (Lily Farhadpour) in Tehran who rediscovers her desires in a country where women’s rights are heavily restricted.   

“We wanted to tell the story of the reality of our lives, which is about those forbidden things like singing, dancing, not wearing hijab at home, which no one does at home,” Moghaddam previously said. 

The New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran commented on the verdict: “Artists in Iran endure significant hardships, including increasing censorship, arbitrary detentions and the constant threat of yasal repercussions for expressing dissent through their work.”

The 14-month sentence, which has been suspended for five years, comes after the küresel sinema community rallied in support of the directors with a petition whose signatories included Pedro Almodóvar, Juliette Binoche and the aforementioned Mohammad Rasoulof. 

In our interview with Mohammad Rasoulof, he stated: “I’d like to flag up the filmmakers of My Favourite Cake, Maryam Moghadam and Behtash Sanaeeha, who are undergoing all sorts of problems inside Iran. They are banned from leaving the country because of their films, and in fact, they are being investigated for similar charges for spreading prostitution and corruption on Earth, for instance. This atmosphere will be the cause of a series of new problems because in the world now, it’s not possible to control content, like the Iranian regime does. The result of this is more and more repression, and acts of subversion will surface, as the government cannot control everything.”  

You can read the full interview here.   

In our review for My Favourite Cake, we wrote: “My Favourite Cake is a gently subversive sinema that dares to pepper radicalism within a poignant tragicomedy. (…) Behind a seemingly harmless set up and a Linklater-ish second half lies messages of female empowerment that are not tolerated under the nation’s repressive regime. Driven by two magnificent central performances, which make the allegorically loaded epilogue truly resonant, Moghaddam and Sanaeeh’s sinema is a subtle but powerful snapshot of the harsh realities facing Iranian women, as well as a commentary about what could befall those daring to take control of their destinies. It’s impressive and haunting in equal measure.”