Film
The President’s Cake (12A)
Dir. Hasan Hadi, Iraq/US/Qatar, 2025, 105 mins. In Arabic with English subtitles. Cast. Baneen Ahmad Nayyef, Sajad Mohamad Qasem, Waheed Thabet Khreibat.
🏆 Cannes Film Festival (2025): Winner of 2 awards - the Caméra d'Or and the Audience Award.
In 1990s Iraq, young Lamia lives with her ailing grandmother, Bibi, eking out an existence in a remote village. Disaster strikes when Lamia is ‘honoured’ with baking the cake for her school class’s mandatory celebration of Saddam Hussein’s birthday. In other circumstances, this might be an innocuous responsibility, but Bibi and Lamia can’t afford the ingredients, and the last family that didn’t comply was dragged through the streets.
A child’s eye view of a dictatorship, The President’s Cake skilfully navigates between the comic and the tragic.
Hasan Hadi’s heartbreaking The President’s Cake, a multiple award winner at Cannes, is an unforgettable look at a country crushed by poverty and international sanctions and ruled by a sadistic, greedy, and vain tyrant.
For detailed information about the film's age rating and content notices, you can visit the BBFC website and search the film title, then scroll down to the “Content Advice” section: www.bbfc.co.uk
🏆 Cannes Film Festival (2025): Winner of 2 awards - the Caméra d'Or and the Audience Award.
In 1990s Iraq, young Lamia lives with her ailing grandmother, Bibi, eking out an existence in a remote village. Disaster strikes when Lamia is ‘honoured’ with baking the cake for her school class’s mandatory celebration of Saddam Hussein’s birthday. In other circumstances, this might be an innocuous responsibility, but Bibi and Lamia can’t afford the ingredients, and the last family that didn’t comply was dragged through the streets.
A child’s eye view of a dictatorship, The President’s Cake skilfully navigates between the comic and the tragic.
Hasan Hadi’s heartbreaking The President’s Cake, a multiple award winner at Cannes, is an unforgettable look at a country crushed by poverty and international sanctions and ruled by a sadistic, greedy, and vain tyrant.
For detailed information about the film's age rating and content notices, you can visit the BBFC website and search the film title, then scroll down to the “Content Advice” section: www.bbfc.co.uk
