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James Mottram

4.5/5 stars
Hasan Hadi makes a striking debut with The President’s Cake.
Winning the Iraqi filmmaker the Camera d’Or for best first feature at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, the film perfectly blends the political and the personal to elevate its narrative into something quite profound.
Set in Iraq in the early 1990s under Saddam Hussein’s rule, the narrative hinges on the dictator’s decree that his people annually celebrate his birthday. Every April, children in schools are assigned various tasks – from collecting flowers and fruits to even baking a cake.
The latter might sound like a pleasant enough exercise, except that international sanctions have left basic ingredients in short supply or even banned.
That is the dilemma facing nine-year-old Lamia (Baneen Ahmed Nayyef), who draws the short straw and must somehow find everything she needs to assemble the cake and bring it to her class.


Set in Al-Chibayish, a town on the Euphrates River in southern Iraq, Hadi’s film effortlessly captures life in the region, as youngsters use small coracles to make their way to school across the waters.
Living with her grandmother Bibi (Waheed Thabet Khreibat), Lamia has even more issues at hand when she learns that her ailing relative can no longer look after her and is planning to hand her over to a couple with more means.
In distress, Lamia flees with her friend and neighbour Saeed (Sajad Mohamad Qasem) and her pet rooster, Hindi, hitching a ride and seeking the requisite ingredients.
Their odyssey relies on begging, borrowing and stealing. They encounter both the kindness of strangers and the cruelty of nefarious adults who exploit these innocents on the streets.


Hadi’s observational camerawork and his ability to elicit remarkable naturalistic performances from his young actors recall the cinema of the great filmmakers from neighbouring Iran – in particular, Jafar Panahi’s 1995 debut The White Balloon. The chemistry between Nayyef and Qasem is enchanting, a beautiful expression of bonded friendship.
The President’s Cake concludes with real footage of Hussein celebrating his birthday in typically garish fashion, surrounded by his cronies. However, it is the end of Lamia and Saeed’s journey that truly leaves an impact; curiously, the World War II submarine classic Das Boot also springs to mind.
Expressing the horrors of living under a dictatorship through the perspective of everyday folk who are left to suffer, Hadi’s film is an instant classic.
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Hasan Hadi’s profound film follows a young Iraqi girl trying to find ingredients for a cake to celebrate Saddam Hussein’s birthday


Hasan Hadi’s profound film follows a young Iraqi girl trying to find ingredients for a cake to celebrate Saddam Hussein’s birthday.


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.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Hasan Hadi’s profound film follows a young Iraqi girl trying to find ingredients for a cake to celebrate Saddam Hussein’s birthday

Hasan Hadi’s profound film follows a young Iraqi girl trying to find ingredients for a cake to celebrate Saddam Hussein’s birthday