The President's Cake
DIRECTORS’
FORTNIGHT
PEOPLE'S CHOICE
AWARD
BEST FIRST
FEATURE
The President's Cake
A Film by Hasan Hadi
2025 - Iraq/USA/Qatar - Drama - 102 min.
with Banin Ahmad Nayef , Sajad Mohamad Qasem & Waheed Thabet Khreibat
While people across 1990s Iraq struggle to survive the war and food shortages, Saddam Hussein requires each school in the country to prepare a cake to celebrate his birthday. Despite her efforts to avoid getting picked, 9-year-old Lamia is chosen among her classmates. The young girl must now use her wits and imagination to gather ingredients for the mandatory cake or face the consequences.
DIRECTORS’
FORTNIGHT
PEOPLE'S CHOICE
AWARD
BEST FIRST
FEATURE
More Films
Optical Illusions
A film by Cristián Jiménez
2009 - France/Chile/Portugal - Comedy - 1.85 DCP - 105 min.
It’s winter in Valdivia. A mall guard falls in love with an elegant thief. A hard-working employee is trained by his company for unemployment. A blind skier recovers sight and is terrorized by the world he finally sees. The winter advances. Everything feels unreal: Optical Illusions.
Liberté
A film by Albert Serra
2019 - France/Portugal/Spain - Drama - 1.85 - 120 min.
1774, shortly before the French Revolution, somewhere between Potsdam and Berlin. Madame de Dumeval, the Duc de Tesis and the Duc de Wand, libertines expelled from the puritanical court of Louis XVI, seek the support of the legendary Duc de Walchen, German seducer and freethinker, lonely in a country where hypocrisy and false virtue reign. Their mission is to export libertinage, a philosophy of enlightenment founded on the rejection of moral boundaries and authorities, but moreover to find a safe place to pursue their errant games, where the quest for pleasure no longer obeys laws other than those dictated by unfulfilled desires.
Sombre
A film by Philippe Grandrieux
1999 - France - Drama/Horror - DCP - 112 min.
Following the route of the Tour de France, a solitary motorist Jean periodically stops off to pick up and brutally kill prostitutes. During a rain storm, he runs into a young woman, Claire, whose car has broken down. He offers her a lift...