HRANA News Agency – The prison and financial penalties for Behtash Sanaeeha and Maryam Moghaddam, directors of the film My Favourite Cake, along with the film’s producer Gholamreza Mousavi, have been upheld in full by Branch 36 of the Tehran Appeals Court. In the initial ruling, the three were sentenced to a total of five years and four months in prison and ordered to pay monetary fines.
As per the ruling issued on May 27, 2025, the defendants were collectively sentenced to five years and four months in prison and fined 1.4 billion rials.
In the lower court ruling, issued by Branch 26 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court, Behtash Sanaeeha and Maryam Moghaddam were each sentenced to 14 months in prison and fined 400 million rials for “propaganda against the regime through spreading falsehoods to disturb public opinion.” Their prison terms were suspended for five years. Additionally, Sanaeeha, Moghaddam, and Mousavi were each sentenced to one year in prison—also suspended for five years—and had their equipment confiscated for “collaboration in producing obscene content.”
Separately, Judge Iman Afshari convicted all three of “screening the film without a license,” ordering them to pay 200 million rials in fines and to forfeit all related equipment.
On March 1, 2025, a hearing for the three filmmakers, along with three other defendants—two actors and a cinematographer—was held in the same court.
The indictment for the filmmakers was issued in February 2025.
Despite My Favourite Cake receiving awards at international festivals—including the Silver Hugo at the Chicago International Film Festival—Sanaeeha and Moghaddam, who are also a married couple, were unable to attend due to a travel ban.
The film was produced without censorship or enforcement of the mandatory hijab for its female actors. It drew significant criticism from officials at the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance.
It’s worth noting that My Favourite Cake, a drama released in 2024, won the Silver Hugo at the Chicago International Film Festival and attracted public attention after its online release.
