The President's Cake

Cannes 2025
Directors’
Fortnight
Cannes 2025
People's Choice Award
Cannes 2025
Best First
Feature
TIFF 2025
Official Selection
Oscars 2026
Iraqi Entry
Busan 2025
Official Selection

The President's Cake

A Film by Hasan Hadi

2025 - Iraq/USA/Qatar - Drama - 105 min.

with Baneen Ahmed Nayyef , Sajad Mohamad Qasem & Waheed Thabet Khreibat

Oscars 2026: Official Iraqi Submission

Language: Arabic

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.

In Collections:
Cannes 2025
Directors’
Fortnight
Cannes 2025
People's Choice Award
Cannes 2025
Best First
Feature
TIFF 2025
Official Selection
Oscars 2026
Iraqi Entry
Busan 2025
Official Selection

More Films

Joaquim

A film by Marcelo Gomes

2017 - Brazil - Drama - 2.39 - 97 min.

Brazil, 18th century. The colony of Portugal endures a decline in gold production. A Portuguese minority rules over a corrupt and autocratic society. Joaquim is an efficient soldier, famous for capturing gold smugglers. While waiting for his promotion to Lieutenant, he leaves for a risky mission in search of new gold mines - the only way to buy the freedom of Blackie, a slave he is in love with.
Based on the true story of Tiradentes, the first leader of the Brazilian revolutionary movement.

Ghost Town Anthology

A film by Denis Côté

2019 - Canada - Drama/Fantasy - 1.85 - 97 min.

In Irénée-les-Neiges, a small, isolated town with a population of 215, Simon Dubé dies in a car accident. The stunned townspeople are reluctant to discuss the circumstances of the tragedy. From that point on, for the Dubé family as well as for Mayor Smallwood and a handful of others, time seems to lose all meaning, and the days stretch on without end. Something descends slowly upon the area. In this period of mourning and in this fog, strangers start to appear. Who are they? What is happening?

Green Border

A film by Agnieszka Holland

2023 - Poland/France/Czech Republic/Belgium - Drama - 152 min.

In the treacherous and swampy forests that make up the so called "green border" between Belarus and Poland, refugees from the Middle East and Africa trying to reach the European Union are trapped in a geopolitical crisis cynically engineered by Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko. In an attempt to provoke Europe, refugees are lured to the border by propaganda promising easy passage to the EU. Pawns in this hidden war, the lives of Julia, a newly minted activist who has given up her comfortable life, Jan, a young border guard, and a Syrian family intertwine.

30 years after EUROPA EUROPA, three-time Oscar Nominee Agnieszka Holland's poignant new feature GREEN BORDER opens our eyes, speaks to the heart, and challenges us to reflect on the moral choices that fall to ordinary people every day.