Vafamehr was arrested on 29 June 2011, reportedly due to her acting in Granaz Moussavi's 2009 Iranian-Australian film My Tehran for Sale that is critical of her native Iran.[2] She was released on 24 October 2011, after posting unspecified bail.[3] It was reported that she was sentenced to 90 lashes and a year in prison for appearing in the movie as an actress whose work is banned by the Iranian authorities.[4] On 27 October 2011, Amnesty International reported that an Iranian appeals court had reduced Vafamehr's prison sentence to three months and overturned the flogging sentence.[5] Eventually Vafamehr was released after 118 days, but she was banned from making or playing in films and any forms of cultural activities as well as from leaving Iran.