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

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