Iranian directorial duo Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeha, who in February were banned by Iranian authorities from traveling to the Berlin Film Festival to launch their film “My Favourite Cake,” have now been subjected to repeated travel bans after their passports were returned.
Last week, Moghaddam — who is Swedish-Iranian — was ready to fly to Sweden to visit her family and attend the Swedish premiere of “My Favourite Cake” when she was stopped.
Moghaddam said in an Instagram post that her “passport was confiscated at Tehran’s airport and I was informed that we (me and Behtash Sanaeeha) are barred from leaving the country again.”
Moghaddam added that this took place “only a week ago after our passports were given back to us,” and “only after I had got tickets, paid the exit fees and a lot of more expenses which had obviously gone in vain.”
In the post, Moghaddam pointed out that she is having a “really hard time” figuring out “why we were given back our passports when it was their intention not to let us leave.”
“Is it because of a hidden agenda to mentally and psychologically abuse us?” the director asks in the post. She then went on to blast recently elected Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.
“It is crystal clear to any intelligent Iranian that you and your comrades are not this nation’s company and friends,” she wrote. “Your fundamentalist fellows, at least, do not claim or pretend to be any better than they are. You cannot lead a society to growth and reform through deception, but you make it drown in the swamp of hypocrisy.”
Pezeshkian, who portrays himself as a reformer and a modern leader who can usher in a new era in Iran, became president in July following the death in a helicopter crash of his predecessor, conservative cleric Ebrahim Raisi.
“My Favourite Cake,” which is about a 70-year-old woman who revitalizes her love life while living alone in Tehran after her husband died and her daughter left for Europe, stirred up controversy in Iran because it shows a woman not wearing the mandatory hijab, people drinking alcohol and dancing.
The film, which has been widely sold by France’s Totem Films, is now being rolled out in several European countries, including the U.K. “My Favourite Cake” is produced by Iran’s Filmsazan Javan, France’s Caractères Productions, Sweden’s Hobab and Germany’s Watchmen Productions.