Baneen Ahmad Nayyef, Sajad Mohamad Qasem, Waheed Thabet Khreibat
Reminiscent of classic works of neorealist cinema, Iraqi writer-director Hasan Hadi’s exceptional debut The President’s Cake is a detailed portrait of life under dictatorship, as seen through the struggles of a nine-year-old girl. Winner of the Camera d’Or at Cannes, it’s Iraq’s submission for Best International Feature Films at the 2026 Oscars.
Iraq, 1991: Lamia (Baneen Ahmed Nayyef) lives in poverty with her ailing grandmother, Bibi (Waheeda Thabet Khreiba). Disaster strikes when Lamia is asked to supply the cake for her school class’s mandatory celebration of Saddam Hussein’s birthday. In other circumstances, in other countries, this might be a light responsibility; in Hussein’s Iraq, crushed by international sanctions, it’s a nightmare. Bibi and Lamia can’t afford the ingredients — and the last family that didn’t comply was dragged through the streets. Enlisting Saaed (Sajad Mohamad Qasem) to help, and accompanied by her pet chicken Hindi, Lamia struggles to find what she needs, as the adults she encounters cheat, rob and betray her. Hadi’s compassionate, tragicomic film balances light and dark in its child’s eye view of the moral collapse resulting from scarcity and authoritarianism.
