The President’s Cake, 2025.
Written and Directed by Hasan Hadi.
Starring Banin Ahmad Nayef, Sajad Mohamad Qasem Waheed, Thabet Khreibat, Rahim AlHaj, Muthanna Malaghi, Ahmad Qasem Saywan, Thaer Salem, Fatima Abouharoon, Mohammed Rheimeh, Rokia Alwadi, Abdelkarim Jasim, Maytham Mreidi, and Nadia Rashak.
SYNOPSIS:
In 1990s Iraq, nine-year-old Lamia must bake Saddam Hussein’s birthday cake. She scrambles to find ingredients for this compulsory task while facing potential punishment if she fails.
In what plays like a film made by a long-lost Safdie brother, writer/director Hasan Hadi follows nine-year-old Lamia (Baneen Ahmad Nayyef), drawn by her school to run around her town gathering the ingredients for Saddam Hussein’s birthday, hence the title The President’s Cake. It also bears emphasizing that this is a dictatorship, and a refusal to participate comes with dangerous consequences. This also means that scenes of a politically innocent child roaming around town are juxtaposed with sights of brainwashed civilians marching in the streets, professing their loyalty and servitude to Saddam Hussein.
“Draw Day”, as it’s called, makes for such a stressful environment that Lamia’s ailing grandmother Bibi (Waheed Thabet Khreibat), who already doesn’t want this burden to fall on her granddaughter, uses what little money she has left to pawn her into a new family in hopes of escaping from the entire ordeal. Naturally, this sudden abandonment comes across as confusing to Lamia, who rejects joining this new family and heads into the streets to complete her mission of acquiring sugar, eggs, and whatever else is required to bake the cake.
Fortunately, she comes across classmate Saeed (Sajad Mohamad Qasem), tasked by Draw Day with collecting fruit for the occasion, and they look out for one another as they try to acquire ingredients that, due to various circumstances involving the state of Iraq, prove difficult to obtain. Not to mention that several of these characters, in possession of what they need, are shady, meaning the film becomes a multi-pronged, extended fetch quest that grows increasingly darker and dangerous with each new leg of the journey. That’s without even getting into the bombs raining down on the area that also must be accounted for.
Meanwhile, a sick and fragile Bibi works with an uncaring police department to discover the whereabouts of Lamia. And while this certainly sounds like a hectic series of events for the girl (who also has her rooster for companionship), it’s more relaxed than that description suggests; there is inherent danger here, but the film is more concerned with the bonding between her and Saeed. There are two children eager and determined to get their job done for a president that they don’t necessarily understand is a ruthless dictator responsible for much of Iraq’s problems. It’s also not a coming-of-age story but rather a coming of awareness surrounding the reality of their homeland. The President’s Cake is sweet, nerve-racking, and devastating.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Robert Kojder
