The President’s Cake – Movie Review
The directorial debut of Hasan Hadi, The President’s Cake doesn’t attempt to explain late 1990s Iraq. Instead it simply places you inside it, at ground level, where survival is negotiated through ordinary decisions that are anything but simple. The film had its world premiere at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival where it won the Audience Award and the Caméra d’Orm and it was later selected as the Iraqi entry and shortlisted for Best International Feature Film at the 98th Academy Awards.
The story follows Lamia, played with striking naturalism by Banin Ahmad Nayef, a young girl from the marshlands of southern Iraq living under the regime of Saddam Hussein. After being selected at school to bake a cake for the president’s birthday, she travels into the city with her ailing grandmother, Bibi (Waheed Thabet Khreibat). But their journey fractures almost immediately. Unable to care for Lamia any longer due to her declining health and financial strain, Bibi takes her to a friend’s shop to eat where she also shares that Lamia will now be living in the city with this friend. Faced with abandonment, Lamia runs away. What follows is an episodic journey through a society under pressure. While Bibi, alongside taxi driver Jasim (Rahim AlHaj), search desperately for her, Lamia stumbles across Saeed the pickpocketing son of a beggar, and her best friend and classmate, played by Sajad Mohamad Qasem. Together, they attempt to complete Lamia’s shopping list: 5 eggs, flour, sugar, & baking powder. Meanwhile Bibi, alongside taxi driver Jasim (Rahim AlHaj), are searching desperately for her, eventually arriving at a police station where Bibi collapses and is hospitalised, leaving Jasim to continue the search for the girl alone and in hopes that he can reunite her with Bibi before its too late.
Iraq under Saddam Hussein is depicted as deeply corrupt and oppressive. Authority is performative, loyalty is enforced, and systems are riddled with exploitation. Throughout the film, a chilling line is recited in unison: “we sacrifice our blood and soul for you, Saddam.” It’s proclaimed by children in classrooms, soldiers in marches, protestors in parades, etc. but it doesn’t seem motivated by devotion. Rather it’s a rehearsed declaration demanded by a system that equates performance with loyalty and that is emblematic of a regime that demands everything while giving very little in return.
Corruption filters down into everyday life. People cheat, lie, steal, and manipulate, not always out of malice, but often out of necessity. And yet, the film does not excuse it. Instead, it presents a morally fractured world where survival often comes at the cost of integrity. This is where the film becomes particularly confronting. In a society that outwardly aligns itself with religious identity and moral structure, what we see instead is a landscape marked by selfishness, exploitation, and at times deeply disturbing behaviour. We see violence, manipulation, and predatory intent and the gap between professed values and lived reality is stark, and the film does not shy away from exposing it.
At the same time, the film is equally clear that this hardship is not produced by the regime alone. The effects of US-led sanctions are deeply embedded in the world of the film. Scarcity defines every interaction. Basic goods are difficult to obtain. Children are forced into hard labour just to secure a handful of eggs, or placed in vulnerable situations just to receive baking powder. This dual reality is crucial.
The suffering of ordinary Iraqis is shown to be the result of both an oppressive internal regime and external geopolitical pressure. One exploits; the other exacerbates. Together, they create a system in which survival becomes a constant negotiation. At the centre of it all is Banin Ahmad Nayef’s Lamia. She absorbs the world around her rather than reacting dramatically to it, allowing the audience to feel the weight of each encounter. Sajad Mohamad Qasem’s Saeed provides an essential counterpoint. His pickpocketing is not glamorised, but contextualised as survival. Their friendship grounds the film emotionally, making its eventual fracture all the more painful. It is not just a loss of trust, but a loss of shared stability.
But what lingers most after The President’s Cake is how contemporary it feels. This is a film set more than 25 years ago, yet its themes resonate with unsettling clarity. Hasan Hadi was not making a film about current events—but the patterns he captures remain painfully familiar. A cost-of-living crisis shaped by international decisions. A population caught between external sanctions and internal corruption. Systems that demand loyalty while failing those they govern. The film does not reduce this complexity. It holds both realities together forcing us to reckon with the fact that suffering is often the product of multiple overlapping forces.
That is what makes it so sobering. The hardship is not just what happened, but how often it continues to happen. The President’s Cake is a quietly haunting work. It’s episodic, restrained, and deeply human, and leaves you thinking about its events days later. It captures the intersection of political systems and personal survival with remarkable clarity, refusing easy answers or singular blame. Through Lamia’s journey and her fragile friendship with Saeed, it reveals a world where children are forced to navigate realities far beyond their years and in that haunting chant, echoing long after it’s spoken, it reminds us just how costly it can be when both power and survival demand more than people can give.
The President’s Cake is in Australian cinemas April 2
