Keswick Film Festival

Synopsis

Marin is 70 years old and has lived alone for decades since her husband died and her children left home. Even her weekly meeting with her previously wild friends have slipped to monthly…and then yearly. Feeling isolated and lonely, she decides to take her future into her own hands and "sets out to revamp her love life. Before long, her eye is caught by taxi driver Faramaz. Throwing caution to the winds, she engineers a night to remember, filled with music, dance and brain-bruising quantities of wine. But plans have a way of going awry in this lovely, intimate, tragicomic tale of late-blooming love in the shadow of Iran's repressive regime" – Fatima Sheriff, Little White Lies.

"In its gentle way, this is a subversive piece of film-making. Its directors, Maryam Moghadam and Behtash Sanaeeha, were prevented from travelling to Berlin in February for the film's world premiere after the Iranian authorities confiscated their passports, having taken issue with scenes of hijab-free boozing, dancing and a terrific sequence in which Mahin faces down the 'morality police'. Perhaps more radical than the censor-bating, though, is the fact that 'My Favourite Cake' trains its lens on lonely, ordinary older people – a demographic all too frequently invisible to film-makers the world over. A rare delight" – Wendy Ide, Observer.