MY FAVOURITE CAKE Trailer (2024) Drama Movie

MY FAVOURITE CAKE Trailer (2024) Drama Movie

MY FAVOURITE CAKE Trailer (2024) Drama Movie
© 2024 - Curzon

My Favourite Cake

Festival poster
Persian کیک محبوب من
Directed by Maryam Moghaddam
Behtash Sanaeeha
Written by
Maryam Moghaddam
Behtash Sanaeeha
Produced by
Etienne de Ricaud
Peter Krupenin
Gholamreza Moosavi
Behtash Sanaeeha
Christopher Zitterbart
Starring
Lily Farhadpour
Esmail Mehrabi
Cinematography Mohammad Haddadi
Edited by
Ata Mehrad
Behtash Sanaeeha
Ricardo Saraiva
Music by Henrik Nagy
Production
companies
Caractères Productions
Watchmen Productions
HOBAB
Filmsazan Javan
Distributed by Totem Films
Release date
16 February 2024 (Berlinale)
Running time 97 minutes
Countries
Iran
France
Sweden
Germany
Language Persian
My Favourite Cake (Persian: کیک محبوب من, translit. Keyk e mahbub e man) is a 2024 drama film co-written and directed by Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeha, and starring Lily Farhadpour and Esmail Mehrabi. The international co-production between Iran, France, Sweden, and Germany had its world premiere on 16 February 2024 at the 74th Berlin International Film Festival. The filmmakers were issued travel bans during post-production, and prohibited from attending the premiere in Berlin by the Iranian Government. The film follows the story of a woman who decides to live out her desires in a country where women's rights are heavily restricted.

Synopsis
After losing her husband and daughter, 70-year-old Mahin has been living a lonely life in Tehran. But one day, she decides to join her friends for the afternoon tea and finds a new spark in her heart. She meets someone who makes her feel alive again, and the evening brings unpredictable surprises and memories.

Cast
Lily Farhadpour as Mahin
Esmail Mehrabi as Faramarz
Production
Background
The film follows the story of a woman who decides to live out her desires in a country where women's rights are heavily restricted.[1]

Funding and production
The film was among the first six films selected for the first round of the New Dawn scheme[a] after its launch in 2022.[3]

The film, the third by the Iranian writing-directing duo Maryam Moqadam and Behtash Sanaeeha, is a co-production by FilmSazan Javan (Iran), Caractères Productions (France), HOBAB (Sweden) and Watchmen Productions (Germany). It was supported by the Swedish Film Institute, Sveriges Television, New Dawn, ZDF/ARTE, Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, the World Cinema Fund, the CNC's Aide aux cinemas du monde, the Institut Français, the Île-de-France region, Eurimages and the Berlinale Co-Production Market.[4] It was also supported by the World Cinema Fund.

Travel bans

Esmail Mehrabi and Lily Farhadpour from My Favorite Cake with a photo of Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeha, who were not allowed to leave the country (Berlinale 2024)
In September 2023, when Moghaddam and Sanaeeha wanted to travel to Paris for the post-production of the film, their passports were confiscated and they were threatened with criminal charges.[5] This followed a raid on the home of the film's editor by Iranian security forces, during which they seized rushes and other material related to the production. The media saw a connection in these actions to their acclaimed 2020 film Ballad of a White Cow, which encountered the wrath of Iran's strict Islamic government. In December 2023, approximately 30 film organizations, festivals and filmmakers, as well as non-governmental organizations for freedom of expression, wrote an open letter calling on the Iranian authorities to immediately drop all charges against the duo and to lift their travel ban. Signatories included the Berlinale, the International Coalition for Filmmakers at Risk (ICFR) and PEN America.[6]

In January 2024, after its nomination to compete at the 74th Berlinale, the festival again called for freedom of travel and freedom of expression for the directing duo.[7][8]

Release
My Favourite Cake had its world premiere on 16 February 2024, as part of the 74th Berlin International Film Festival, in competition.[9][10][11] The Iranian Government would not permit the directors to attend, so they issued a statement to be read out at the screening by actress Lily Farhadpour, including these words:[12]
We have come to believe that it is no longer possible to tell the story of an Iranian woman while obeying strict laws such as the mandatory hijab. Women for whom the red lines prevent the depiction of their true lives, as full human beings. This time, we decided to cross all of the restrictive red lines, and accept the consequences of our choice to paint a real picture of Iranian women – images that have been banned in Iranian cinema ever since the Islamic Revolution...

My Favourite Cake is a film made in praise of life. This is a story based on the reality of the everyday lives of middle-class women in Iran, a close look at a woman’s solitude as she enters her golden years. A vision of the reality of women’s lives which has not often been told. It is a story that is contrary to the common image of Iranian women, and similar to the life stories of many lonely people on this planet, about savouring the short, sweet moments in life...

Ladies and gentlemen, we proudly dedicate our premiere screening to the honorable and brave women of our country who have moved to the front lines of the fight for social change, who are attempting to tear down the walls of outdated and fossilised beliefs, and who sacrifice their lives to achieve freedom.

It was screened at Lichter Filmfest Frankfurt International, Frankfurt, Germany, on 20 April 2024.[13] The film was also screened in the Horizons section of the 58th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival on 28 June 2024.[14][15]

In Canada, the film was screened in the Special Presentations at the 2024 Cinéfest Sudbury International Film Festival held from 14-22 September 2024 in Sudbury, Ontario.[16] It was also featured in galas and special presentations of 2024 Vancouver International Film Festival and was screened on 2 October 2024.[17]

It screens In late October in competition at the 69th Valladolid International Film Festival for the Golden Spike,[18][19] and on 25 October at the Adelaide Film Festival in Australia.[20] On 28 October 2024, the film will be showcased at the 37th Tokyo International Film Festival in the "Women’s Empowerment" section.[21]

The Paris-based sales and production company Totem Films acquired international sales rights to the film before its Berlinale world premiere.[22]

Reception
On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes website, the film has an approval rating of 100% based on 14 reviews, with an average rating of 8.5/10.[23]

Peter Bradshaw reviewing for The Guardian rated the film with 5 stars out of 5 and touching on the topical controversy where Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeha, the directors of the film, were prevented from travelling to Berlin to attend their own premiere; he wrote, "As well as everything else, this wonderfully sweet and funny film will contribute to the debate about whether repressive regimes are the nursery of artistic greatness." Bradshaw praised the performance of lead pair and concluded the review terming the film as lovely and wrote, "There is something quietly magnificent in it as moments like these in life are poignantly brief – but many never have them at all.[24]

Jessica Kiang writing in Variety gave positive review and said, "What it lacks in edge, the film certainly makes up for in the quality of its performances...."[25] Leslie Felperin reviewing the film for The Hollywood Reporter dubbed it as "A delicious slice of life.," and opined, "Moghaddam and Sanaeeha and the actors turn this set piece into a whirling dervish of elderly seduction, executed with crack comic timing, precise choreography for both the camera and the characters themselves, and one of the all-time great crash cuts."[26] Serena Seghedoni reviewing at Berlinale in Loud And Clear Reviews awarded 4 stars and wrote, "My Favourite Cake is a story that absolutely needs to be told: the heartwarming, hilarious, sweet, devastating, tragic tale of a woman who one day dares to be free."[27]

RogerEbert.com's Robert Daniels compared the character of Mahid to the lead in the Georgian drama Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry, writing, "each woman is seeking a kind of autumnal relationship, defying their oppressive surroundings before it's too late."[28]

Accolades
Award Date Category Recipient Result Ref.
Eurimages Co-production Development Award 19 February 2022 Eurimages Award My Favourite Cake Won [29]
Berlin International Film Festival 25 February 2024 Golden Bear Maryam Moqadam and Behtash Sanaeeha Nominated [30]
FIPRESCI Prize My Favourite Cake Won [31]
Prizes of the Ecumenical Jury Won
Cinéfest Sudbury International Film Festival 26 September 2024 Outstanding International Feature Won [32]
Valladolid International Film Festival 26 October 2024 Golden Spike Pending [33]
Notes
In 2022 nine European public funds launch New Dawn to increase diversity in film.[2]
References
Sanaeeha, Behtash (15 February 2022). "My Favourite Cake". Cineuropa. Retrieved 3 February 2024.
Abbatescianni, Davide (20 May 2022). "Nine European public funds launch New Dawn to increase diversity in film". Cineuropa. Retrieved 3 February 2024.
"New Dawn project My Favourite Cake in competition at 74th Berlinale". New Dawn. 23 January 2024. Retrieved 3 February 2024.
Pan, Sevara (31 January 2024). "Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeha's My Favourite Cake to premiere in the Berlinale Competition". Cineuropa. Retrieved 3 February 2024.
Goodfellow, Melanie (27 November 2023). "Iranian 'Ballad Of A White Cow' Directors Behtash Sanaeeha & Maryam Moghadam Banned From Travel As They Face Trial Over New Film". Deadline. Retrieved 5 February 2024.
Goodfellow, Melanie (20 December 2023). "Film Orgs Petition Iranian Authorities To Lift Charges Against Directors Maryam Moghadam & Behtash Sanaeeha". Deadline. Retrieved 5 February 2024.
"Berlinale Issues Call for Freedom of Movement, Freedom of Expression for Competition Directors Maryam Moghaddam & Behtash Sanaeeha". Berlinale. 1 February 2024. Retrieved 5 February 2024.
Goodfellow, Melanie (1 February 2024). "Berlinale Makes Appeal For Iranian 2024 Golden Bear Contenders Maryam Moghaddam & Behtash Sanaeeha As They Barred From Travel". Deadline. Retrieved 5 February 2024.
Ntim, Zac (22 January 2024). "Berlin Reveals 2024 Competition Lineup: Rooney Mara, Mati Diop, Isabelle Huppert, Abderrahmane Sissako Movies Among Selection". Deadline. Retrieved 3 February 2024.
"My Favorite Cake". Berlinale. 6 February 2024. Retrieved 6 February 2024.
Abbatescianni, Davide (22 January 2024). "The Berlinale unveils its Competition and Encounters titles". Cineuropa. Retrieved 3 February 2024.
"Berlinale Topics". 16 February 2024. Retrieved 20 October 2024.
"My Favourite Cake". Lichter Filmfest. 20 April 2024. Retrieved 4 May 2024.
"Catalogue of Films – Horizons". The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. 28 June 2024. Retrieved 1 September 2024.
Kudlac, Martin (14 June 2024). "Karlovy Vary unveils the full line-up for its 58th edition". Cineuropa. Retrieved 1 September 2024.
"Plenty to savour at this year's edition of Sudbury's International Film Festival". CBC Northern Ontario. 22 August 2024. Retrieved 24 August 2024.
Vicki Duong (9 August 2024). "VIFF announces its special selections for 2024". The Georgia Straight. Retrieved 29 August 2024.
Rivera, Alfonso (12 September 2024). "Major European filmmakers set to compete for the Golden Spike at Seminci". Cineuropa. Retrieved 7 October 2024.
"My Favourite Cake". Valladolid International Film Festival. 12 September 2024. Retrieved 7 October 2024.
"My Favourite Cake". Adelaide Film Festival. Retrieved 18 October 2024.
"TIFF: Full lineup". Tokyo International Film Festival. 25 September 2024. Retrieved 26 September 2024.
Leo Barraclough (24 January 2024). "Berlin Competition Title 'My Favourite Cake,' by Iran's Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeha, Boarded by Totem Films (EXCLUSIVE)". Variety. Retrieved 4 February 2024.
"My Favourite Cake (2024, Drama/Romance)". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved 1 September 2024.
Bradshaw, Peter (16 February 2024). "My Favourite Cake review – charming portrayal of a 70-year-old Iranian's appetite for romance". The Guardian. Retrieved 16 February 2024.
Jessica Kiang (16 February 2024). "'My Favourite Cake' Review: A Romantic Confection That Rises Sweetly, Until It Crumbles". Variety. Retrieved 16 February 2024.
Leslie Felperin (16 February 2024). "My Favourite Cake' Review: From Iran, a Delectable Later-Life Love Story". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 18 February 2024.
Serena Seghedoni (18 February 2024). "My Favourite Cake: Berlin Film Review". Loud And Clear Reviews. Retrieved 18 February 2024.
Daniels, Robert (19 February 2024). "Berlin Film Festival 2024: Dahomey, My Favorite Cake, A Traveler's Needs | Festivals & Awards | Roger Ebert". RogerEbert.com. Retrieved 22 February 2024.
Economou, Vassilis (15 February 2022). "My Favourite Cake wins the Eurimages Award at the Berlinale Co-Production Market". Cineuropa. Retrieved 3 February 2024.
Rosser, Michael (22 January 2024). "Berlin film festival reveals 2024 competition line-up". ScreenDaily. Retrieved 3 February 2024.
Scott Roxborough (24 February 2024). "Berlin: Indie Juries Pick 'Sex', 'Dying' and 'Cake'". Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 24 February 2024.
"‘The Count of Monte-Cristo’ big winner at Cinéfest Sudbury". Sudbury.com, September 27, 2024.
Rivera, Alfonso (12 September 2024). "Major European filmmakers set to compete for the Golden Spike at Seminci". Cineuropa. Retrieved 7 October 2024.
Further reading
Roxborough, Scott (16 February 2024). "The Iranian Directors of 'My Favourite Cake' on Censorship, Travel Bans and "Crossing Red Lines"". The Hollywood Reporter. (interview with the directors)
External links
My Favourite Cake at IMDb Edit this at Wikidata
My Favourite Cake at Rotten Tomatoes Edit this at Wikidata
My Favourite Cake at Totem Films
My Favourite Cake at Caracteres
My Favourite Cake at Berlinale
Categories: 2024 films2024 drama filmsIranian drama films2020s Persian-language films2020s French films2020s German films2020s Swedish films
How late is too late? It’s a question that besets Mahin (Lily Farhadpour) a 70-year-old retired nurse who sleeps late, whose late husband is late by 30 years, and who is beginning to wonder if her loneliness might become untenable as late-life gets later still. But the question could also be asked of “My Favourite Cake” itself, which after leaning into Farhadpour’s ample charisma and the lovely, whimsical chemistry she strikes up with co-star Esmail Mehrabi, takes a strangely bitter turn in its home stretch, like a spongy confection whose dangerously high sucrose levels you are only just getting used to, when an unwelcome bit of grit chips a tooth.

The film’s writer-directors, Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeha, are returning to the Berlin Competition after their “Ballad of a White Cow” played to quite some acclaim here in 2021. Returning, that is, in spirit but not in person, as the Iranian authorities have banned them from travelling and instigated court proceedings against the film, for, among other things, its depiction of a Mahin without her hijab, as well as the scenes of her defying the morality police, and dancing and drinking wine with a man to whom she is not married. Given that real-world context (a lot of the film had to be shot in secret) it is perhaps not surprising that Moghaddam and Sanaeeha might feel the need to remind audiences of the harsh realities of life for women under the nation’s increasingly repressive regime. It’s less clear whether structuring the film right up to that point as a gently absurdist, tipsy romance between two of the nicest unmarried septuagenarians in Tehran, provides the right framework from which to deliver such a sober message.

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Mahin, when we meet her, is preparing for one of her increasingly rare get-togethers with her girlfriends. Cinematographer Mohammad Haddadi’s tasteful, hospitable images complement Mahin’s tasteful, hospitable home as she and her friends gather around her dining table – which is laden with food and fresh fruit — and gossip like teenagers. Or not quite: while some chatter about the husbands they’ve outlived and others relate slightly scandalous stories of picking up new boyfriends, one energetically hypochondriac friend insists they all watch the DVD of her colonoscopy. Washing up alone later, having had a quick Facetime with her daughter who lives abroad, you can sense how empty and quiet Mahin’s neatly furnished little home feels without their bawdy company.

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Perhaps spurred on by her friends’ stories, Mahin resolves to try to meet a man, a decision which would not raise many eyebrows anywhere else, but in Tehran is tantamount to a radical act. First at the bakery, then at the local park and finally at a pensioners’ restaurant, Mahin embarks on an extremely genteel form of cruising, which is beautifully played by Farhadpour, allowing the character’s sense of mischief and self-aware daring to peek through her natural, and socially mandated, reserve. And so when almost the first eligible candidate she talks to — taxi driver Faramarz (Mehrabi) whom she spots at the restaurant and by chances hears is unmarried — turns out to be a pretty much her perfect match, the wish-fulfillment fantasy aspect of this unlikely encounter doesn’t even seem too contrived. There can be few characters drawn to be so lovably deserving of having their wishes fulfilled. Their night together — a hall-of-famer first date if ever there was one — progresses with comical rapidity from the getting-to-know-you awkwardness to professions of love to plans for the next day and that day after and all the days after that.

What it lacks in edge, the film certainly makes up for in the quality of its performances and watching Farhadpour and Mehrabi mutually glow off each other is a pleasure that it feels almost cruel to have so abruptly denied. But that final twist should have happened a lot earlier if the movie were making a bid for being a social thriller, or a lot later if it was meant as a more realistic, grounded drama, or not at all if it was designed to remain in the register of warmhearted rom-com. As it is, that solar-plexus kicker seems, narratively, to do to Mahin what the directors are so critical of their own society doing to women of her age and outlook: punishing her for daring to pursue a dream of happiness in a society where even if a woman may have her cake – in this case, a delicious looking orange-blossom sponge — she will never get to eat it too.

Read More About:
Behtash Sanaeeha, Berlin Film Festival, Maryam Moghaddam, My Favourite Cake
The Ballad of a White Cow duo returns with a (bitter)sweet romcom about two Iranian septuagenarians with butterflies in their stomach who refuse to accept the strict religious laws of their country and spend a night together. My Favourite Cake is an audacious and often hilarious later-life love story which caused a travel ban for its directors.

Balled of a White Cow duo Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeha wasn't allowed by the Iranian authorities to travel to the Berlinale earlier this year for the world premiere of My Favourite Cake. Their new work zooms in on the lonely Mahin, a retired seventy-year-old nurse who has been a widow for thirty years and whose daughter and grandchildren live abroad. Having a man around sometimes comes in handy, notes one of her friends. In turn, divorced taxi driver Faramarz regrets that he no longer has a wife to cook for him. The two immediately hit it off when they meet, and Mahin invites Faramarz over - at her home at night. The Iranian Guidance Patrol would be thoroughly offended! My Favourite Cake is charming romcom with clever dialogues about love in later life, although the underlying commentary on the religious stranglehold of Iran becomes increasingly explicit as the film progresses.
Sfeer plus parcours
Plus Parcours, with a surplus of experience
16 October 14:30 | Introduction + film + coffee and cake

Every year, Film Fest Gent invites film lovers to a series of afternoon films, offering them more than just another regular screening. This selection challenges with films from all over the world and aims to be a guide in the overwhelming offer. Host is no other than film connoisseur Roel Van Bambost, who introduces every film to the audience.

Do you like to enjoy coffee and cake together in the Film Fest Café after the film? Order this when purchasing your ticket for the advantageous price of 5 euros.

Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email licensing@ft.com to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More information can be found at https://www.ft.com/tour.
https://www.ft.com/content/bf1a8f6c-1cbe-491e-97e9-798c9d7b5325

It would be nice to talk about My Favourite Cake purely as what it is: a lovely and bittersweet comedy of moments seized in the autumn of life. So for now at least, let us do that. The film is Iranian and co-directed by Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeha. Moghaddam is an actor too. (Her roles include the terse 2013 drama Closed Curtain from dissident filmmaker Jafar Panahi.) But their star here is the superb Lily Farhadpour, cast as Mahin, 70, an affectionate but sad-eyed Tehran widow. 

Early on, we see her visited by a jumble of female friends. The result is hilarious. (You are unlikely to hear funnier dialogue about polyps.) But loneliness also gnaws at Mahin. Living abroad, her daughter sends her gifts of clothes, kept pristine because she has no one to wear them for. Until, finally, she makes a dash for companionship. 

Quietly resolved, she stakes out a local restaurant popular with taxi drivers where she spies the slight, equally single Faramarz (Esmail Mehrab). He is duly invited to drive her home. What follows is a night of dancing, dolma and tentative romance — the nerves of both parties weighed against there being so little time. Though the story will grow more complicated, the mood is so beguiling, you might almost forget where the couple are.

But life and art are not simply divided in a tyranny. Last summer, Iranian security forces raided the home of Ata Mehrad, Moghaddam and Sanaeeha’s editor, seizing copies of the film. Soon afterwards, Moghaddam and Sanaeeha, who are married, were banned from leaving Iran, charged with making anti-government propaganda. A legal verdict is still pending. 

The alleged crime? While scenes of Mahin and Faramarz drinking wine had angered the authorities, the co-directors believe the crux was Farhadpour being seen without a hijab inside her character’s home. At the time of writing, they now face a continued travel ban, and possibly prison time.

Aside from the outrage involved, the shame is that this charming film should need to be discussed with reference to the Iranian regime. The stuff of the story is universal: age, love, the social invisibility of older women. Sadly, of course, it was always going to be a hard tale to tell in a theocracy where all women are obsessively monitored. 

Likewise, the mere fact that Mahin and Faramarz recall a time before the 1979 revolution can’t help but seem subversive. After all, that means they remember when sharing food and music would not bring police to your door.

★★★★★

In UK cinemas from September 13

Like taxis on a rainy night, you wait for ages for a great, bittersweet film about love in late middle age with a side helping of gastronomic lusciousness — and then two come along at once. Tehran-set but internationally-produced comedy-drama My Favourite Cake premiered at the Berlin Film Festival a day after Valentine’s Day. That day just so happened to overlap with the release of French drama The Taste of Things in several key territories. (Taste opened in the U.S. on Feb. 9.)

Of course, writer-directors Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeha‘s Berlinale competitor is very different from Tran Anh Hung’s period study starring Juliette Binoche and Benoit Magimel, but the two films overlap in fascinating ways. Both remind viewers of the ephemeral nature of all things. Both are sublime portraits of complicated, older souls, one of whom is an excellent cook who expresses love through food. And in both, the lead characters take daring risks in order to embrace pleasure, joy and love in ways that would scandalize the societies in which they live.

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My Favourite Cake
The Bottom Line
A delicious slice of life.
Venue: Berlin Film Festival (Competition)
Cast: Lily Farhadpour, Esmaeil Mehrabi, Mansoureh Ilkhani, Soraya Orang, Homa Mottahedin, Mehdi Pilehvari, Melika Pazoki, Effat Rasoulinezhad
Directors: Maryam Moghaddam, Behtash Sanaeeha
Screenwriters: Behtash Sanaeeha & Maryam Moghaddam
1 hour 36 minutes
There’s at least one big difference, though: In contemporary, theocratic Iran, where 70-year-old widow Mahin (Lily Farhadpour) and same-aged divorced taxi driver Faramarz (Esmaeil Mehrabi) live, their newly minted romance could get both of them, but especially Mahin, in deep trouble. Shot around the time when protests broke out nationwide over the fate of Mahsa Amini, who died in police custody after being arrested for not wearing her hijab properly, Cake crackles with the valiant, liberational energy of the Woman, Life, Freedom movement, an attitude baked right into its bones.

To have even made such a film — where just for starters the female protagonist also refuses to hide all her hair under a hijab, and that’s before she invites an almost total stranger to come back to her place to spend the night — is an act of defiance in itself. Of course, the Iranian state has responded by refusing to grant travel visas to Moghaddam and Sanaeeha, who are unmarried life partners as well as collaborators, so they could attend the festival. (Their previous features are Ballad of a White Cow and Risk of Acid Rain.)

The film is exceedingly funny, even in translation, right up to the point where the tone shifts dramatically. Deeply endearing on every level, from its anti-authoritarian politics to its body positivity to general joie de vivre, this is a crowdpleaser through and through (unless the crowd happens to be made up of moral policemen and dogmatic clerics).

Told with crisp, comic precision over a tight 96 minutes, Cake opens with Mahin still in bed near noon, her usual MO as we later learn. Widowed some 30 years ago, she lives alone in a peaceful, airy apartment, generously appointed with a large walled garden. Her daughter lives abroad, and although she and Mahin talk regularly on the phone, it’s obvious the older woman, who used to work as a nurse, misses seeing her grandchildren grow up. At least she keeps up a bit with her female friends — all widows like herself — and her best friend Puran (Mansoureh Ilkhani) calls her every day, even if her conversation is mostly chiding Mahin for sleeping in all the time and complaining about her own bowel health.

At a lavish luncheon Mahin lays on for her golden-girl pals, the women debate the utility of having menfolk around, with some exulting in their freedom while others note guys can be useful around the house sometimes. This seems to stir up feelings in Mahin, who despite her poor knees takes a stroll in a local park one day, where she sees the moral police trying to arrest a young woman (Melika Pazoki) for not wearing her hijab properly. Mahin intervenes and just manages to avoid being arrested herself for the same crime.

All of this triggers a wave of nostalgia in Mahin. She remembers a time when she could wear a bathing suit on the beach (and was thin enough not to feel self-conscious), go see the latest pop singers in the Hyatt Regency’s ballroom, and mischievously steal plants from a local park on a lark with Puran without fear of imprisonment or worse. With all that at the back of her mind, she impulsively takes a fancy to Faramarz (veteran actor Mehrabi), a taxi driver she notices eating alone in a café who complains to friends at another table that he has no wife at home to make him supper. Drawn to his kindly face and amiable presentation, Mahin practically stalks him to the taxi stand he works out of and insists he drives her home. The two click, and Mahin suddenly invites him to come back to her place, making it clear with her big come-hither eyes that she might be offering more than just illicit wine, homemade food and the titular cake. With a delighted twinkle, he accepts.

Shot almost in real time that evokes Richard Linklater’s Before Sunset and other talky movie seductions, the back half of the film follows Mahin and Faramarz around her apartment as they get to know each other, growing ever more intoxicated with the backyard booze and the giddiness of their own audacity.

Moghaddam and Sanaeeha and the actors turn this set piece into a whirling dervish of elderly seduction, executed with crack comic timing, precise choreography for both the camera and the characters themselves, and one of the all-time great crash cuts. Clearly, it’s all too good to be true, but the looming sense of danger just makes the couple’s frenzied lunge for happiness seem all the sweeter. Some viewers may quibble that the final twist is problematic, but the dying fall of the epilogue buttons down an impressively succinct, tautly strung script. We can only hope that all involved in this remarkable, heady achievement will have a chance to seize more days with further films.
Mahin, 70, lives alone in Tehran since her husband’s death and her daughter’s departure for Europe, until an afternoon tea with friends leads her to break her solitary routine and revitalize her love life. But as Mahin opens herself up to new romance, what begins as an unexpected encounter quickly evolves into an unpredictable, unforgettable evening.

Co-Directors Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeha (BALLAD OF A WHITE COW, CIFF 2021) have crafted a beautiful, moving film about ageing and loneliness, with an incredible cast, and a truly unique story at its heart. The film's power is amplified by their style of humour and subversive romance.

Showings – select to order tickets:
Sat, Sep 21st, 12:45 PM @ Globe Down
Thu, Sep 26th, 7:15 PM @ Chinook 14
Year:
2024
Runtime:
96 minutes
Language:
Farsi
Country:
France, Germany, Iran, Sweden
Premiere:
Alberta
Subtitle Language:
English
Awards:
Winner, International Narrative Feature Award: Grand Jury Prize Calgary International Film Festival 2024 Winner, Prize of the Ecumenical Jury Competition, Berlin International Film Festival 2024 Winner, FIPRESCI Prize Competition, Berlin International Film Festival 2024
Director:
Maryam Moghaddam, Behtash Sanaeeha
Screenwriter:
Maryam Moghaddam, Behtash Sanaeeha
Producer:
Gholamreza Mousavi, Behtash Sanaeeha, Étienne de Ricaud, Peter Krupenin, Christopher Zitterbart
Cast:
Lily Farhadpour , Esmail Mehrabi
Cinematographer:
Mohammad Haddadi
Editor:
Ata Mehrad, Behtash Sanaeeha, Ricardo Saraiva
Music:
Henrik Nagy
In My Favourite Cake, Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeha tell the sweet, hilarious, tragic story of an Iranian woman who one day realizes she has every right to be free.

Directors: Maryam Moghaddam & Behtash Sanaeeha
Genre: Drama
Run Time: 92′
UK Release: September 13, 2024
US Release: TBA
Where to watch: in UK cinemas

There’s a scene in Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeha’s Iran-set My Favourite Cake (Keyke Mahboobe Man) where the film’s protagonist, 70-year-old Mahin (Lily Farhadpour), prevents a teenager from being arrested by the morality police for not wearing the hijab properly. While the officers still take her friend away on their van, the girl remains the park, where Mahin just happened to be passing by.

“The more submissive you are, the more they’ll take you down,” Mahin tells the girl, adding that it’s something she has learned very recently. In fact, Mahin has been going through quite the change, and we’ve been following her – a widower whose husband died thirty years prior, and who’s been lonely and confined to her house ever since – through it all.

At the beginning of the movie, Mahin is in bed, sleeping. Soon, a phone call wakes her up, and she tiredly scolds her friend for calling her before noon. “You know I don’t fall asleep till morning,” she tells her, slowly getting out of bed. Behind her is a photo of herself in a wedding dress – one of the many remnants of her past life that are scattered throughout her house, almost a reminder of the fact that her husband’s death will always define her.

But one day, something changes for Mahin. Some friends of hers come over for tea and she finally relaxes, enjoying their company and their chats about anything from finding a man to colonoscopies and imaginary deseases. Right there and then, as her friends are joking around about what it’s like to be single and whether a man would even be useful at all, something clicks inside Mahin’s head. Though we don’t find out till later, that’s the moment our protagonist realizes that she has every right to be happy.

Soon, we follow her as she goes to a pensioners’ restaurant, where she notices a man sitting alone, and overhears him tell other customers that the reason he never brings his own food is that he doesn’t have a wife who’d cook it for him. This is enough for Mahin to make her move: having learned that the man, whose name is Faramarz (Esmail Mehrabi), is a taxi driver, she waits for him at the taxi stand, pretending to know him, and that’s where our story begins.

Lily Farhadpour and Esmail Mehrabi in a car in the film My Favourite Cake (Keyke Mahboobe Man), screened at the Berlin Film Festival
Lily Farhadpour and Esmail Mehrabi in a car in the film My Favourite Cake (Keyke Mahboobe Man), now at the 2024 Berlin Film Festival. (© Hamid Janipour / Berlinale)
Faramarz ends up driving her home, and though it’s a little awkward at first, Mahin’s honesty soon gets through to Faramarz, and they immediately hit it off, their conversations brimming with affection for one another, as if they had known each other all their lives. And perhaps they have, as they are both so used to being alone that Mahin’s move was the spark they both needed to decide to be each other’s person. When Mahin invites him to her home, the taxi driver accepts. “I thought it couldn’t be wrong, after being alone all these years,” she tells him, explaining why she was so blunt; “I don’t know when it started, but no one sees me anymore,” he tells her, later on, sharing his deepest fears.

A lot happens on that crazy night that Mahin allows herself to have. Our two friends talk, dance, drink a whole lot of wine, fix light bulbs in the garden, talk about death, laugh at the contradictions that have defined their lives till then. Above all, Mahin and Faramarz are like two kids, excited by the possibility of something that, up till a few hours before, was completely unthinkable. It’s as simple as two people enjoying each other company, and all it took was a little courage on Mahin’s side. But it was an incredibly brave first step, considering where she lives.

Eventually, our drunk duo starts dancing, and the music is loud. “What can the morality police do to us? They’ll make us marry!,” they joke, laughing around, deciding right there and then that they will spend what’s left of their lives together, as they’ve earned the right to be free from the constraints of a misogynistic society. It’s a fairytale, of course, because it’s a lot more complex than that, and we know it just as well as our protagonists do, but watching them reclaim their happiness is such a liberating, rewarding experience.

Mahin and Faramarz are adorable, and we could spend hours and hours watching them be their wonderful selves. They also share the same sense of humor, which is the same as the film’s, as My Favourite Cake is filled to the brim with hilarious jokes and clever lines that make the film such an unforgettable experience. And Lily Farhadpour and Esmail Mehrabi inhabit their characters with such ease and authenticity that it’s as if we were right there with them, witnessing the magic in real time.

My Favourite Cake (Keyke Mahboobe Man) (Curzon)
In their statement for the film, directors Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeha share that their country’s beliefs “forbid writers, filmmakers, and all storytellers from depicting the true lives of Iranian women behind closed doors,” and they explain their desire to make a film “in praise of women, life, and freedom.” They write that they’re aware of “crossing the red lines” with their story, adding that they “accept the consequences of this choice.” And some of these consequences have already taken place, as, on their way to the Berlin Premiere of their film, Moghadam and Sanaeeha were stopped at the airport, their passports detained, and they are currently facing a court trial in Iran.

When a filmmaker believes in something so strongly that they’re ready to risk it all for something as simple as telling a story, we owe it to them to listen. And My Favourite Cake is not as much a love story as it is a story about love: the love that Mahin one day decides to reclaim for herself, the love for a life that doesn’t need to be over after a tragedy, and the love that Moghadam and Sanaeeha share for Iranian women in the film. My Favourite Cake is a story that absolutely needs to be told: the heartwarming, hilarious, sweet, devastating, tragic tale of a woman who one day dares to be free.

My Favourite Cake premiered at the 2024 Berlin Film Festival and will be released in UK cinemas by Curzon on September 13, 2024. Read our Berlin Film Festival reviews!

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