“A small piece of the cake” in the cinema: Iran: “It’s about life, women and freedom”

The Iranian directors Behtash Sanaeeha and Maryam Moghaddam were not allowed to leave Iran for the premiere of their latest film “Keyke mahboobe man” (German title: “A little piece of the cake”) in competition at this year’s Berlinale. The film was critically acclaimed in Berlin in the absence of the directors and is now in cinemas in Germany. He tells of a 70-year-old widowed woman named Mahin in Tehran who is trying to find a new partner. The interview was conducted via Zoom and the couple was in Tehran.

We spoke to each other in 2021 when you were in Berlin for the premiere of your film “Ghasideyeh gave sefid” (“Ballad of the White Cow”). It was a day before Iran’s presidential election (which the late ultra-conservative Ebrahim Raisi won). Interestingly, today is again the day before the election in Iran! What is the mood there right now?

(Both laugh)

Behtash Sanaeeha: I don’t know if this coincidence is a good or a bad sign! There is no atmosphere in the election campaign this year either. In 2021, I told you exactly that. The electoral atmosphere that once existed when many people took part in the election no longer exists in Iran.

How are you currently? Are you still under a travel ban?

B. S.: Yes, it will soon be a year that we are both under a travel ban. It all started when the secret service searched our film editor’s apartment and confiscated his computers and hard drives. Luckily we had a copy of the film (“A Small Piece of the Cake”) in our studio in France. When Maryam and I wanted to go to France for the post-production of the film, they confiscated our passports at the airport and said that we had been banned from traveling for a while and that the Revolutionary Court should now decide on it. Since then we have been constantly interrogated and pressured to withdraw the film from the Berlinale. We rejected it and explained that only European producers can decide. And now we are waiting for the court verdict.

You started filming the film “A Small Piece of the Cake” before the Women’s Life Freedom Uprising in Iran. Shortly thereafter, Mahsa (Jina) Amini was killed and the rebellion began. What was it like completing the film in such a situation?

B. S.: We were devastated, we could hardly continue working, our hearts went out to the people on the streets. Many of our team also took to the streets. So we paused the project for a few days. Only after a while did we all come together at the main filming location, in the main character Mahin’s apartment, to talk to each other. We thought that this work could also make an important contribution to this movement, because that’s exactly what the film is about: about life, women and freedom. We knew then that we should definitely finish the film.

For decades, films made in Iran had to submit to the hijab compulsion, showing women wearing headscarves even in their own homes, even in the bedroom, and reproducing the lie that it was the normal state of Iranian women and not a political compulsion. But “A Little Piece of the Cake” no longer submits to this. In a statement about the film, you wrote that it is no longer possible to tell the story of an Iranian woman and at the same time reproduce oppression, for example with the compulsory hijab.

Maryam Moghaddam: We knew from the start that we could have problems because of this. But for around 45 years, this compulsory hijab has not allowed Iranian women, indeed society as a whole, to breathe. Now something has changed in people so that they can no longer submit to this lie, this oppression. This is what we as filmmakers showed with our script, the women on the streets in a different way, even though they are still subject to reprisals and arrests. At some point you say: No matter what could happen to me, my conscience will no longer allow me to continue telling this lie.

Not every actor is willing to risk a lot and play a role like this. How are your two main actors, Lily Farhadpour and Esmail Mehrabi, doing? Unlike you, they were allowed to travel to Berlin.

B. S.: Our actors have been banned from working. Your projects have been canceled. It is recommended that producers not hire them. This is a tradition in Iranian cinema. It was also the case with Maryam that the producers didn’t work with her for years. Even if a producer had signed a contract with her, he would get a call during filming asking him to replace her.
The current situation is that Maryam, I and our Iranian producer (Gholamreza Mousavi) are banned from traveling and our main actors are banned from working. We don’t know whether things will stay that way for the two actors in the future. Maybe you’ll cut them some slack because they’re older and better known. But the two of them also told us from the start, after reading the script, that this film could have serious consequences for them – and yet they were willing to accept the consequences and take part in the project.

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»“A little piece of the cake” could be the story of many women in Iran. The film talks about the everyday desire not to be lonely without becoming banal. It’s about life, but also about the fear of death. How did you move from the subject of execution – in your previous film – to this tender, everyday love story?

M. M.: On the one hand, we wanted to make a film about the meaning of life, about the absurdity, the shortness of life, about the fact that despite everything, it is worth living, also because of the small moments of happiness. Life has both banal and philosophical aspects. And it’s the small, simple aspects that make life worth living. On the other hand, we wanted our main actors to be older people, because with age the meaning of life becomes more profound.
In addition, relationships between two older people are shown less in the cinema. Over the course of film history, production companies have influenced our viewing habits in such a way that we constantly see 20-year-olds who look like fashion models and we just have to find them attractive. But if we as filmmakers don’t think like that, then we should show that even people who are about to die are attractive to us, that human feelings and love are just as beautiful in old age as they are in 20-year-olds. So we chose this not-so-often-told story.

When the film’s trailer was released on social media, many Iranians who had not yet seen the film expressed their enthusiasm for the trailer alone in the comments; A number of people constantly asked whether this film was really shot in Iran because they are not used to this realistic, censorship-free picture of their everyday life in an Iranian film. How do you feel about such comments or reactions?

B. S.: You won’t believe it, but sometimes I have tears in my eyes when I read comments like this. Something like this could have happened much, much sooner. How many years have we missed, what generations of filmmakers and actors could have made such films! Now what has been suppressed for 45 years appears in the form of a few comments; they are feelings expressed in words. And all because people are seeing a realistic image of themselves in the cinema for the first time. That’s what cinema is supposed to do: you want to recognize yourself, your life, your city, your society in the film. And these reactions also move us: Compared to our previous film, where I didn’t bother so much with the feedback and comments on social networks, this time I read the comments, respond to them, and post hearts.

M. M.: Since we can’t see the film with our viewers in the cinema, we are now meeting the viewers on social media. And even I, who have seen the film so many times, am thrilled every time I see the image of the Iranian woman without a headscarf in our film.

“A small piece of the cake”, Iran, France, Sweden, Germany 2024. Directed and written by Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeha. With: Lily Farhadpour and Esmail Mehrabi. 97 min. Now in the cinema.