Cannes 2025 | The President’s Cake Review: Iraq’s First-Ever Selection An Instant Classic

Hasan Hadi’s The President’s Cake is a lively, haunting immersion into the absurdities, devastation and horrors of 1990s Iraq. There’s a thread here of children-propelled Iranian cinema but also something utterly distinctive. Hadi invites you to laugh, weep and be unforgettably shaken. It’s a spirited debut, rollicking in the energy people muster in hard-pressed circumstances.

UN-backed sanctions shroud the country. Amidst acute poverty, rank food shortages, skyrocketing prices, Saddam Hussein declares massive country-wide celebration of his birthday. Most can’t afford it except few rich city-slickers , who sit in silos willfully detached from random detentions happening right outside their door. The absurdity of Hussein’s order strikes all but no pushback is allowed space. Any resistance instantly lands people in jail. The President’s Cake presents a bleak vision. Both adults and kids steal. The nine-year-old Lamia (an indelible Banin Ahmad Nayef) lives with her grandmother Bibi (Waheed Thabet Khreibat) in desperate poverty. There’s also a rooster Hindi Lamia devotedly keeps close as a pet. Lamia and her grandmother just about cobble together a day’s small meal. She helps out as much as she can, studying on a boat by a lamp’s light as night falls. Lamia is god-fearing, the most duty-abiding kid that can exist. She’s cautious about the right course of action, not straying or being tempted, which her best friend Saeed (Sajad Mohamad Qasem) couldn’t care less about. Saeed is a liberal liar, spinning tall tales. It’s been while he’s seen his father who’s jailed. But Saeed is loyal in his attention, constantly watching out for Lamia. She’s so conscientious she buys easily into his presumably concocted anecdotes.

Everyone is just scavenging whatever they can get their hands on to stay afloat. At school, Lamia’s teacher takes away the sole apple from her bag that’d have been her lunch. Corruption and con artists are rife. Survival itself is contingent on the lawless, when the official administration has geared itself to suit a dictator’s nonsensical whims. The citizens are abandoned. Yet in classrooms, kids start the day with a pledge to “sacrifice their blood” for Hussein. Warmongering is written into public imagination—a demand to be aggressive with Hussein’s enemies is seen as a true patriotic act.

A lucky draw is held in class. The grandmother has taught Lamia ways of evasion. But there’s no escape. It falls to her to prepare the cake. Naturally, it spells doom for Lamia and her grandmother. How can they even afford it? Somehow, the grandmother scrapes out bare sustenance for them. Indulgences are an impossible dream. However, Lamia is bent on readying the cake, the fear of consequence hammered by the teacher. But in their remote marshlands, access to items required for the cake is unavailable. Lamia is also allured by visiting an amusement park Saeed has told her about. So, Lamia and Bibi set off for the city. A kind stranger gives them a ride. Apparently, it’s a wedding car. The groom is in it as well. He recounts how he didn’t get to see his would-be wife. The day he left his house, ready to meet her, he was hit by the “American bombs”, blinding him.

It's only when they reach the city that Lamia realizes her grandmother is planning to put her in the care of richer people. She protests, but Bibi insists she can’t look after her any longer. She runs away, Saeed in tow. Bibi searches for Lamia but the police show no interest, dismissing her. They are preoccupied with ensuring arrangements for the birthday celebrations. Together, Lamia and Saeed pool in their best efforts and assemble the eggs, flour, sugar and baking powder. They negotiate their way through the city’s alleys and shopkeepers. Of course, they go up against all sorts of cheats, nasty, unpleasant people and sweet-talking predators. Friendship is tested but their bond is too strong, weathering frustration and hurtful words sputtered in an anguished instant. Ultimately even Lamia’s stiff honesty bends. It’s a joy to watch Nayef and Qasem riff off and spar with each other—the former heartbreaking, the latter sparkling with mischief. The purity they exude cradles the film, even as air raids occasionally puncture the scene.

The President’s Cake leads to a gut-wrenching ending. The kids might have achieved the task. It’s a bittersweet feeling—loss outweighing everything else. No compliment can square for the price paid in the film’s dramatic quest. Quickly, the real world with its hovering horrors crashes in. By turns endearing and horrific, The President’s Cake is a portrait of a people living in dire paradoxes—compelled to partake in pomp, while struggling to even feed themselves.

The President’s Cake premiered in Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes 2025.