As well as everything else, this wonderfully sweet and funny film will contribute to the debate about whether repressive regimes are the nursery of artistic greatness. The Iranian government has prevented the film’s two directors, Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeha, from travelling to Berlin to attend their own premiere; six months ago, their production offices were raided and computers and hard drives confiscated. But, fortunately, the police couldn’t find the film itself, whose gentle humanity is a compelling rebuke to this fatuous, clumsy repression.
If I had to guess, I would say that the authorities had got wind of a particular scene in which the morality police drive self-importantly around a Tehran park in their van, intimidating young women who are allegedly not wearing their hijabs with enough modesty. The 70-year-old heroine – who wistfully remembers a time when hijabs were not required at all – stands up to these uniformed bullies and rescues a woman from their clutches.
