Iranian administrators Behtash Sanaeeha and Maryam Moghadam have acquired a 14-month jail sentence in addition to $14,000 price of fines associated to their function My Favorite Cake which world premiered on the Berlin Movie Pageant in 2024.
The filmmaking duo and their producer and Gholamreza Mousavi have been within the crosshairs of Iran’s authoritarian Islamic Republic regime since early 2023 over the heartwarming drama about an aged widow who reconnects with life’s small pleasures within the face of solitude.
Sanaeeha and Moghadam, who can also be a Swedish nationwide, had been grounded by a journey ban previous to the movie’s world premiere in Berlin and the couple have since been subjected to an Islamic Revolutionary Court docket investigation. Within the lead-up to the court docket listening to in February, they additionally began receiving dying threats.
Parts of My Favorite Cake which upset the Iranian authorities embody displaying the feminine protagonist, performed by Lily Farhadpour, with out a scarf in addition to the storyline round her romance with an equally lonely widower and scenes by which she dances and drinks wine with him.
Court docket papers launched by Department 26 of the Islamic Revolutionary Court docket in Tehran this week state that Sanaeeham, Moghadam and Mousavi had been convicted “of propaganda towards the Islamic Republic by way of dissemination of false info meant to disturb public opinion” in addition to producing “obscene content material”.
They had been sentenced to 14 months of discretionary imprisonment, suspended for 5 years, and ordered to pay a advantageous of 400M Iranian Rials ($9.4K) to the state treasury. Moreover, the trio had been additionally fined 200 million Iranian Rials ($4.7K) and had their tools confiscated for screening and distributing the movie with out an official exhibition license.
My Favorite Cake was made within the wake of Iran’s 2022 Lady Life Freedom protests, sparked by the dying of Mahsa Amini in police custody after she was arrested for not masking her hair in accordance with the Islamic Republic’s sexist guidelines round how ladies ought to gown.
Previous to the 1979 Islamic revolution ladies had been free to put on what they wished.
My Favorite Cake is amongst quite a few Iranian options made within the wake of the protests displaying ladies with out their head coated.
Mohamed Rasoulof’s Oscar-nominated The Seed of the Secret Fig, shot undercover in Iran previous to going into exile in Germany in 2024, went additional, difficult the patriarchal system on which the nation is run. Oscar-winning director Asghar Farhadi, who can also be residing outdoors of the nation, has stated he won’t shoot in Iran till the duty to put on a hijab is lifted.
The political persecution of Sanaeeham and Moghadam, who’re caught in Iran, has sparked concern within the worldwide movie trade.
Greater than 3,000 cinema professionals – together with Juliette Binoche, Pedro Almodóvar, Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Hiam Abbass, Alberto Barbera, Tricia Tuttle and Rebecca Zlotowski – signed a petition calling for the administrators to be launched and the fees to be dropped forward of the trial in February.
The Worldwide Coalition for Filmmakers at Threat (ICFR), a three way partnership between the European Movie Academy, the Worldwide Documentary Pageant Amsterdam (IDFA) Worldwide Movie Pageant Rotterdam (IFFR), which instigated the petition has referred to as on the worldwide movie group to maintain spotlight the plight of Sanaeeham, Moghadam and Mousavi.
