THE STORY – In 1990s Iraq, 9-year-old Lamia must bake Saddam Hussein’s birthday cake. She scrambles to find ingredients for this compulsory task while facing potential punishment if she fails.
THE CAST – Baneen Ahmad Nayyef, Sajad Mohamad Qasem, Waheed Thabet Khreibat & Rahim AlHaj
THE TEAM – Hasan Hadi (Director/Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 105 Minutes
In “The President’s Cake,” director Hasan Hadi serves up something far more complex than the sweet treat its title suggests. Set in 1990s Iraq under the suffocating regime of Saddam Hussein, the film is a haunting, intimate story of a child forced to confront a world far too cruel and political. What starts as a seemingly whimsical premise – baking a birthday cake – slowly reveals itself as a powerful allegory of authoritarian absurdity, survival under sanctions, and the quiet strength of familial love. Like the cake at the film’s center, the story is built layer by layer, each rich with meaning, sorrow, and defiance.
Executive produced by Marielle Heller and Eric Roth, the story unfolds two days before the president’s birthday, when nine-year-old Lamia (played with raw tenderness by Baneen Ahmad Nayyef) is chosen to represent her school in a nationwide initiative: One student from each school must bake a cake to honor Saddam Hussein. But this “honor” is a curse in disguise. Iraq, crippled by UN-imposed sanctions following the Gulf War, is a nation where water is rationed, food is scarce, and medicine is a distant luxury. Against this backdrop, the government demands opulence and loyalty – lavish birthday celebrations in a land where people plead for flour.
In an early scene, a crowd gathers at a government truck to collect their single jerry can of water that’s said to be a “gift from the president.” It’s a moment that captures the core irony of the film: Life under dictatorship is filled with coercive generosity. These contradictions are never lost on Lamia, who must now somehow procure ingredients that her grandmother can’t afford for their daily meals, let alone a presidential cake.
Hasan Hadi, making his directorial debut, brings a deeply personal lens to the narrative. The film feels like a reckoning – a reflective glance backward at a painful history, refracted through the innocent, questioning eyes of a child. His vision is both poetic and brutally honest. Scenes set in the marshlands, where Lamia and her grandmother live, are particularly striking. It’s not the lifeless desert so often associated with Iraq in Western media but a verdant, precarious haven. There, Lamia paddles to school each day and confides in her beloved pet rooster, unaware of the emotional gauntlet that awaits her.
Lamia’s world is one of quiet desperation and unconditional love. Her relationship with her grandmother played with aching sincerity by Waheed Thabet Khreibat, is the emotional spine of the film. You feel their bond in the smallest gestures. Lamia is constantly looking back to ensure her grandmother is close or offering her hand in silence. Their love is pure, but it’s not enough to shield Lamia from the burden the regime places on her tiny shoulders.
The journey to gather ingredients becomes a coming-of-age odyssey filled with peril, sorrow, and unexpected encounters. On this quest with Lamia is her pet rooster and friend Saeed (Sajad Mohamad Qasem), a boy whose innocent wish to become president so he can eat all the cake in the world carries a chilling undertone. The children’s adventures in the city reveal the stark contrast between the propaganda-fed illusion of prosperity and the brutal truth lived by ordinary Iraqis. In one scene, the army demands donations for the president’s birthday. In another, citizens barter their last possessions for food and clothing.
“The President’s Cake” masterfully examines the psychological toll of dictatorship: how even children are made to worship what they fear and celebrate what starves them. It’s a world where survival means complicity, and disobedience risks death. The trauma of this dissonance is written all over Lamia’s face, especially when she realizes that this cake might cost her the only home and family she knows.
Yet, the film is never preachy. It doesn’t shout its politics. Instead, it lets the tragic absurdity speak for itself. The image of Saddam Hussein dining on a multi-tiered cake while bombs drop and children scavenge for sugar is far more damning than any monologue could be. And the final act leaves you with the gut punch of the reality that even when the baking ends, the suffering doesn’t.
Shot on film, it has a polished yet raw aesthetic. The score, infused with traditional Iraqi oud strings, grounds the narrative in cultural authenticity. Performances feel almost documentary-like in their realism. Though the pacing occasionally drags and some plot points (like what happened to Lamia’s parents) aren’t addressed, the emotional impact lingers long after the credits roll.
“The President’s Cake” isn’t just about a child forced to bake a cake. It’s about the unbearable cost of loyalty. It’s about a generation robbed of childhoods, a nation broken by war and economic collapse, and the quiet, stubborn love that manages to endure in spite of it all. In the end, Lamia loses more than just a day of her life for this task. It’s a loss of illusion and a loss of innocence. Ultimately, she becomes the face of an entire country that gave too much to a leader who gave them nothing in return.
