The President’s Cake could be described as a Middle Eastern remake of The Wizard of Oz. In this version, Dorothy’s got a pet rooster instead of a dog, and the Wicked Witch is Saddam Hussein. The sun-bright road is now treacherous marshland and the heroine is trying to avoid death, not find a way home. It’s an understated drama that’s tender and chilling in the same moments and, as those moments grow, surreptitiously riveting.
The Story
Lamia (Baneen Ahmad Nayyef) lives in a thatched hovel with Bibi (Waheed Thabet Khreibat), the grandmother she adores, and her rooster, Hindi. She happily gets to school every day by rowing herself in a canoe. But today she isn’t as carefree as she’d like.
Every year, in every school, there’s a ‘draw day’ in preparation for Saddam Hussein’s birthday celebrations. Students are randomly selected to contribute what are, by sanction-hit Iraq standards, luxury food items for the annual party. Of particular concern is the baking of a President’s Cake. Cake ingredients are far beyond the reach of households that live in poverty and struggle to eat at all.
The Drawback
When the draw moment comes, Lamia and her classmates all hold their breath as the first name is called. Then the second; then the third. It seems Lamia’s prayers have been answered until the very last announcement, when her world crashes. She’s the one who’s been given the ‘honor’ of baking the President’s Cake.
The Joker
The silent narrator in this film is the Joker, who points out the absurdity of an unhinged despot issuing a national mandate that all citizens must celebrate his birthday. It’s an infantile order but, if disobeyed, punishable by death. Bibi is particularly familiar with Hussain’s grisly brutality and, when she gets the ‘cake news’, is consumed with fear. She decides she’s going to have to make drastic plans in order to protect her young charge.
The Joker resumes his sideshow when the customary bedraggled urchins are replaced by silk-clad children as they march through the streets, singing their tyrant’s praise. As the procession proceeds, Bibi leads Lamia into a store to buy her a new school uniform. The uniform is three sizes too big, but Lamia is grateful for the gift and has no suspicion that this is part of Bibi’s covert plan. But, within minutes, plans, hopes and the story itself are turned on their collective head.
The Rebellion
Lamia has grown up in a suffocating world of tyrannical control. Oppression overwhelms and dissent is taboo. But, despite all this, when the moment comes, she chooses defiance over subservience. It’s a perplexing and believable twist that questions what it is that truly defines us. And for the audience, it’s a pure balcony moment.
Like Dorothy, Lamia meets many archetypes along the way, many of whom are a lot more scary than skeletal-faced trees. And as if this nine-year-old’s load wasn’t heavy enough, her odyssey is set against a backdrop of the 1991 Operation Desert Storm aerial assault.
But as dramatic as warfare is, for Lamia and the students on birthday-dessert duty, hostilities on the ground outgun anything a US bomber can drop.
Release Dates
THEATRICAL
February 6th, 2026 – limited
February 27th = wide
STREAMING
To be announced
Distributed by Sony Pictures Classics
Written & Directed by Hasan Hadi
Interview With Hasan Hadi
This story comes from my childhood memories growing up in Iraq during Saddam’s time. Every year, our teacher would walk in with a bowl and ask us to throw our names into it. He would then draw the name of the student responsible for baking the President’s birthday cake and providing other items—fruits, decorations, cleaning supplies, and flowers.
One year, I was picked to be the flower boy. I still have the photo of me holding the flowers somewhere in my library, and I remember my family’s relief because all I had to bring was flowers. Of course, at the time, sanctions had made corruption so widespread that you could escape the draw if you offered the teacher a service—fixing his bike, giving him a haircut. Then you’d survive. But if you couldn’t, your chances were slim.
For my first feature film, I wanted to tackle a subject, world, theme, and characters that I am familiar with. I was determined to develop these memories into a film about that period in Iraq—depicting the daily reality of its people, but above all, celebrating the power of love and friendship. We have something in Arabic called “Maktoob”, meaning “it is written” or “destiny” which really means that you can’t escape certain things because they’re written on you. The writing process didn’t take so long. I knew the world and the characters that I was writing about. I knew that the film would have a taste of fabulism and natural realism in it.
Eventually, I believe I arrived at a draft that I thought was ready to be shot, but as we started the pre-production and scouting for our cast, I almost put the script aside and surrendered to what the world was giving/gifting me. At one point, I felt making this film was like riding a wild horse: if I let the horse and the conditions control me while making this film, then it would be a disaster; and if I tried to fully control and restrict how the horse would run, then it would throw me off its back and I would’ve completely failed making this film.
So it was a delicate balance between accepting what the world is giving you and how to use that to benefit your story and let it breathe life into my script. This is the first Iraqi film to tackle this important historical period.
