This powerful and important film highlights the brutality of the Iranian regime with a gentle strength of its own

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On the face of it, the Iranian film My Favourite Cake falls into the Hollywood category of heartwarmer. A lonely widow meets-cute with a widower. They have a sweet, tender moment together back at her apartment so she can bake him her favourite cake. It’s the kind of film that shouldn’t be controversial. And yet this movie, as well as being wonderfully written and performed by its leads, Lily Farhadpour and Esmaeel Mehrabi, and very moving in showing all the late-life yearnings of two people condensed into a single evening, is the most dangerous and passionate of the year.

Its co-directors, Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeha, have had their passports taken away by the Iranian authorities and they have been placed under house arrest, having been subject to hours of interrogation – a situation very similar to that of that other Iranian movie titan, Jafar Panahi. Last summer, the Iranian security forces raided the home of the film’s editor and seized hard drives. (Fortunately, copies of the film were also stored in Paris – that traditional home of Iranian cinema’s dissident spirit, and the bridgehead for its presence on the European festival circuit.)