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  • Drama

THE PRESIDENT’S CAKE

  • 2025
  • 1 HR, 45 min
  • APR 3 → APR 9
Details
Released 2025, Iraq, Qatar, United States
Drama
1 hour, 45 minutes
Sony Classics
Arabic with English Subtitles
Starring
  • Baneen Ahmed Nayyef
  • Sajad Mohamad Qasem
  • Waheed Thabet Khreibat
  • Rahim AlHaj
Director

Hasan Hadi

While people across 1990’s Iraq struggle to survive, 9-year old Lamia has been selected to prepare a cake to celebrate the President’s birthday. In a landscape of fear and scarcity, where basic ingredients are nearly impossible to find, Lamia sets out on a determined journey throughout the big city in search of eggs, flour, and sugar. Accompanied by her grandmother, her loyal friend Saeed, and her pet rooster Hindi, she navigates vendors and police officers along the way.

The President’s Cake , Winner of the Camera D’Or and Audience Award at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, and the Official Iraq Entry for the Best International Film Academy Award 2025, embodies innocence, imagination, and inner strength.

Full Cast
Baneen Ahmed Nayyef Lamia
Sajad Mohamad Qasem Saeed
Waheed Thabet Khreibat Bibi
Rahim AlHaj Jasim
Additional Credits
Hasan Hadi Director
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Reviews

“Shot entirely in the director’s home country with a largely amateur, untrained cast, the film blends a striking sense of street-level realism, political commentary and poetic nostalgia for the naive innocence of youth.”

Barry Hertz
Globe and Mail

“While The President’s Cake mostly plays like a genial fairy tale, with superbly balanced humor and drama, Hadi is still unsparing about the ills of patriarchal society. It is a compassionate and winsome debut, packed with an unassuming punch.”

Tomris Laffly
Variety

“This detail-rich and tremendously moving moral fable uncovers harsh realities in Iraqi society without departing from the earnest perspective of its knee-high protagonist, and without diminishing the dignity or value of her hopes and dreams.”

Isaac Feldberg
RogerEbert.com

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