Maryam Moghaddam is forced to pay a high price for her Iranian romantic comedy, writes Lisa Magnusson

The movie « A little bit of the cake » was hailed When it came. It is about an older woman, Mahin, who wants just that: a little more.

She is a widow, her children have moved abroad and created her own lives there, they do not really have time with her. Now she feels alone, longing for love.

Extra claustrophobic Being the existence of being a woman, in an Iran where women are not even second class citizens, but something even lower. They must not move freely. Do not decide for themselves, or what to work with. They can’t even dress as they please. In everything, they are counted as men’s possessions.

Of course, it is not possible to live, those who claim something else. Instead, women sneak up freedom anytime they can. Also the film’s mahin.

Of course, it is not possible to live, those who claim something else. Instead, women sneak up freedom anytime they can.

She goes taxi With a man, eats alone in a restaurant, helps a girl who is harassed by the moral police for her attire, and then instructs her to always stand up: « The more justice you are, the more they push you down. » She gossips about men with her girlfriends on tea invitations – and she meets a man herself and who comes home to her at dinner.

« A little bit of the cake » portrays a woman who is not the regime’s eye servant but a whole person. It has had to pay the Swedish -Image filmmaker and director Moghaddam and her husband, Behtash Sanaeeha, have had to pay dearly for (P1 « Culture News » 7/4).

Since the movie was released they have had an exit ban from Iran, and recently they were sentenced to two years in prison for « propaganda against the system in the form of dissemination of false information in order to create concern in the public ».

Maryam Moghaddam calls the court process a theater performance, where everything has been settled in advance – and yes, theater is just the only dictatorship has to offer: only the blood is genuine. But I promise that what really « creates concern in the public » is the tyranny of the Iranian regime – not the ones who claim it.

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