THE PRESIDENT’S CAKE (Cannes FF 2025) – Review by Diane Carson
Iraqi director Hasan Hadi’s The President’s Cake enjoys two distinctions. It is the first Iraqi film screened in the Directors’ Fortnight, known as the Quinzaine Directors’ Fortnight, launched in 1969 by the French Directors’ Guild. And it has won the Directors’ Fortnight top prize, the sole Cannes Film Festival award voted for by attending audience members. Co-writer with Eric Roth, Hadi deserves the acclaim for a multilayered delicacy of personal and political importance.
The President’s Cake cleverly reveals the intricate, unnerving details of Iraqi life in the 1980s. On the occasion of Saddam Hussein’s upcoming April 28 birthday, special preparations must be made by everyone, no matter their status. This extends to nine-year-old Lamia’s school where a lottery drawing designates a ‘special’ boy and a girl to bring an assigned tribute. So says the belligerent, cantankerous children’s teacher. And thus it falls to Lamia’s classmate friend Saeed to bring fruit for juice and, more problematically, for Lamia to bring a cake. This means that, despite sanctions and shortages of all essentials, Lamia must somehow find necessary ingredients: flour for life, sugar for sweetness, five eggs, etc. as her grandmother, with whom she lives, lists for her. Living in their Mesopotamian marsh environment on small pieces of land, navigating by rowing long, narrow boats, Lamia and her grandmother share a strong bond, and yet Lamia has no choice but to fulfill her assigned chore. Her devoted, diabetic grandmother soon follows searching for Lamia, one step behind and yet committed to finding her granddaughter even as her own health deteriorates. A kind postman figures prominently as well, a balm on the ills of this community.
Knowing the dire consequences of failing to honor their supreme leader Hussein, to whom they pledge love and devotion in class chants, Lamia and Saeed set off for the nearby city to gather ingredients, a Herculean task beset with complications and dangers that only astute bargaining and savvy awareness, well beyond their years, can save from disaster. As Lamia, Baneen Ahmed Nayyef is a treasure of expressive joy and heartbreaking sadness, of frustration and determination. In a subdued, wonderful performance by Waheed Thabet Khreibat, Lamia’s grandmother Bibi adds somber moments and tenderness. Sajad Mohamad Qasem’s Saeed brings energy and impetuous trouble to the quest. Lamia also travels with her beautiful rooster Hindi in an over-the-shoulder sling, an amusing touch of whimsy that almost steals the show.
Each encounter reveals another aspect of Iranian society: pervasive bribes, pawning treasures for bare necessities, petitioning police to give problems attention, disastrous lack of medicine in the hospital due to sanctions, and theft everywhere. Jets fly overhead, bombs fall, photographs and banners pronounce the joys of living under a smiling Saddam Hussein. Alternately humorous and frightening, especially one incident late in the film, Lamia’s and Saeed’s friendship and shared onerous tasks keep the story immensely engaging, viewers rooting for success while recognizing the bad odds. Beyond the inspired presentation of this specific moment, implicit, wider relevance extends the multiple negative aspects of sanctions on the average Iraqi citizen to countries penalized today. This example speaks volume as The President’s Cake offers an astute, poignant story of empathy for humanity caught in the crosshairs.
