The President's Cake (2025)
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
- It's "draw day" across Iraq, when schools select students for the honour of bringing items to their mandatory local celebrations of President Saddam Hussein's birthday. Nine-year-old Lamia (Baneen Ahmad Nayyef) lives in the historic marshes with her spirited grandmother, Bibi (Waheed Thabet Khreibat). Before school, Bibi teaches Lamia clever tricks to avoid being chosen for the president's cake. However, when Musa (Ahmad Qasem Saywan), the authoritative teacher, calls Lamia's name for the most challenging task - the birthday cake - she has no choice but to accept. Refusing could mean imprisonment or even death.
- Actors:
- Baneen Ahmad Nayyef, Waheed Thabet Khreibat, Sajad Mohamad Qasem, Muthanna Malaghi, Ahmad Qasem Saywan, Maytham Mreidi, Rahim AlHaj, Thaer Salem, Ali Khalaf, Fatima Abouharoon, Mahmoud Mazen Lazen, Aqeel Wadi, Mohammed Rheimeh, Rokia Alwadi, Ali Saddam Najem, Abdelkarim Jasim, Mohammad Qasem, Raed Harbi Abdeljalil, Elaf Mohamed, Ahmed Al-Hayali
- Directors:
- Hasan Hadi
- Producers:
- Leah Chen Baker
- Writers:
- Hasan Hadi
- Aka:
- Mamlaket al-qasab
- Genres:
- Drama
- Countries:
- Iraq
Reviews (1) of The President's Cake
Sugar, Sanctions and Saddam - The President's Cake review by griggs
What starts as a simple errand – a little girl sent to bake President Saddam Hussein a birthday cake – quietly turns into a full-blown odyssey. The President’s Cake follows Lamia through sanctions-era Iraq, where every egg, every handful of sugar, feels like a small act of defiance against a regime that wants pageantry from people who can barely afford bread. Hasan Hadi shoots the marshes, markets and cramped flats with a dusty, lived-in beauty that never tips into postcard prettiness.
I’ll admit I wasn’t expecting it to be this heavy. The synopsis hints at a farce; what you get is a quietly bruising drama that asks you to see the world through nine-year-old Lamia’s eyes, as she queues for eggs and stares up at yet another presidential portrait. It is funny in places – the absurdity of the “honour” she’s been given – but the jokes mostly land with a wince.
Baneen Ahmad Nayyef is terrific in the lead – stubborn, funny, uncertain and brave, often in the same beat, and never remotely cutesy. The adults around her feel painfully real: loving, tired, occasionally compromised. And that ending… it lands with a soft, devastating thud, pulling all the small humiliations and tiny acts of resistance into focus. You leave thinking less about the cake and more about the childhood it cost.