Not every important Iranian film is heavy. My Favorite Cake — کیک محبوب من — is proof. Directed by Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeha, it premiered in competition at the 2024 Berlin Film Festival, where the filmmakers were prevented from travelling to attend — a quiet reminder that even a gentle film can be treated as a threat.
What it’s about
Mahin has lived alone in Tehran since her husband died and her daughter moved to Europe. One afternoon, tea with old friends stirs something loose, and she decides to stop accepting loneliness as her lot. What unfolds over a single evening — played with extraordinary warmth by Lili Farhadpour — is a love story between two people in their seventies, and a film about a woman simply claiming the right to joy in a city that polices it.
Why it matters now
In a year of Iranian cinema defined by protest and paranoia, Moghaddam and Sanaeeha made something tender, funny, and quietly radical: a film that insists ordinary pleasure is itself political. For diaspora households — especially older viewers who recognise Mahin’s Tehran — it lands somewhere between a comedy and a heartbreak.
Watching on K-Time
My Favorite Cake streams on K-Time in original Persian, full quality, on Android TV, Fire TV, Google TV, and Nvidia Shield — no VPN, no geo-block. Put it on for your parents tonight; it’s the kind of film that starts a conversation.