Travel-Banned Iranian Directors Dedicate ‘My Favourite Cake’ Berlin Premiere To Women At Forefront Of Woman Life Freedom Fight

Melanie Goodfellow
·4 min read
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Iranian filmmakers Behtash Sanaeeha and Maryam Moghadam’s new feature My Favourite Cake world premieres at the Berlinale on Friday but the directors are not at the festival having been slapped with a travel ban by Iran’s authoritarian Islamic Republic regime.

Their absence was marked at the press conference by two empty seats and a joint portrait, while lead actress Lily Farhadpour, who has been allowed to make the journey, read out a statement on their behalf.

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“We feel like parents who are forbidden from even looking at their new-born child,” it read. “We’re sad and we’re tired, but we’re not alone. This is the magic of cinema. Cinema brings us together. It is a window which opens up a time and a place where we can meet.”

Their quirky comedy-drama stars Farhadpour as a lonely widow who seizes the moment and invites a taxi driver (Esmail Mehrabi) into her home in a bid to break her solitude.

The film was shot in the early days of the Woman Life Freedom protests, sparked by the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini in September 2022.

It is one of the first movies to show its female characters without head scarves within the home since since the establishment of the hardline Islamic Regime in 1979.

The filmmakers said they were prepared to bear the consequences of this move.

“For so many years Iranian filmmakers have been making their films under very complicated rules. It means that red lines have to be obeyed which when they’re crossed can lead to years of not being allowed to work. And it may lead to complicated court cases. It’s a painful experience which we have experienced many, many times in these years,” the directors said in their statement.

“In such a deplorable situation, we continue to try to depict the reality of Iranian society in our films. It is a reality that is most often lost or obscured by layers of censorship,” they continued.

“We have come to believe that it is no longer possible to tell the story of an Iranian woman while obeying such strict laws such as the mandatory hijab. Women for whom red lines prevent their true lives being shown as full human beings. We’ve decided to cross all these restrictive red lines and we accept the consequences of our decision.”

The directors said they wanted to paint a real picture of Iranian women, an image, they said, that has been banned in Iranian cinema ever since the Islamic Revolution.

“My Favourite Cake is a film made in praise of life. It is a story which is based on something which is the reality of the everyday life of many middle-class women in Iran. It looks closely at the loneliness of women feel as they age. It’s a reality of women’s lives which isn’t normally told, which contradicts the common image of Iranian women, but is similar to the life stories of so many lonely people in this world, about savouring the short-sweet moments in life.”

The pair dedicated the world premiere to the Iranian women on the forefront of the Woman Life Freedom protests,” attempting to tear down the walls of outdated and fossilised beliefs, who sacrifice their lives to achieve freedom.”

Sanaeeha and Maryam Moghadam discovered they were subject to a travel ban at Tehran airport at the end of September after their passports were confiscated as they went to catch a flight to Paris to work on post-production of the new film.

They were subsequently told that they faced a trial related to the production.

There had been hopes that the ban would be lifted in time for the pair to attend the Berlinale world premiere.

The directors were previously at the Berlinale with Ballad Of White Cow about a woman whose reality is shattered when she discovers her husband was innocent of the crime for which he was executed. The film has never been screened in Iran.

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