Lantern-lit waterways and long, thin boats used by villagers and children for trips to market and school is not an image contemporary audiences hold of Iraq, especially during the brutal regime of its notorious fifth President, Saddam Hussein. Political narratives often obscure the earthier knowledge that modern Iraq used to be Mesopotamia, considered by many as the cradle of civilization and the birthplace of the first written story in human history. The epic of Gilgamesh dwarfs any legend surrounding said dictator, whose ironclad, decades-long reign made desperate, repressed plebeians of the citizenry, and whose playbook included requiring all schools to assign a student to bake a cake to celebrate his birthday. All of this at a time when UN-backed sanctions deepened poverty and created widespread shortages of food and medicine.
Aptly then, and in the spirit of resistance, Iraqi filmmaker Hasan Hadi opens his debut feature, “The President’s Cake,” with a clairvoyant line from Gilgamesh, as the camera sails across a balmy dusk on the ancient marshland waterways of southern Iraq. A poignant realist fable developed at the Sundance Feature Film Program, the recipient of multiple fellowships and grants, and executive produced by Marielle Heller and Eric Roth, the character-focused film dispels in many ways pervasive stereotypes associated with the Middle Eastern nation.
Hadi relegates some striking political symbolism — mainly, fascinating omnipresent Saddam portraiture and slogans, enough to overwork and discourage Iraq’s future Shepard Faireys — at the level of world building. Instead, Hadi is entirely focused on telling the story of nine-year-old Lamia (Baneen Ahmed Nayyef), a marshland resident, along with her grandmother Bibi (Waheed Thabet Khreibat).
In the film’s opening, they’re running errands on their boat. Elegant strings and quiet photography by cinematographer Tudor Vladimir Panduru disarm and make us lean in, preparing us for the tension that will soon grip this two-person household; three, if you count Lamia’s comically patient pet rooster, Hindi. A couple of days before Hussein’s birthday, Bibi gets fired sans explanation from her job working in the fields. And despite deploying distraction tactics in her classroom, Lamia is crushed to be selected by draw as the student in charge of baking the cake — her classmates got off lucky with duties of bringing flowers, fruit, or cleaning supplies — at a time when flour, eggs, and sugar were astronomically expensive and scarce.
Granddaughter and grandmother set off to the big city to purchase these mighty ingredients, but Bibi has a shocking surprise in store for Lamia. The distraught and bereft girl takes off with Hindi, and runs into her classmate Saeed (Sajad Mohamad Qasem), also visiting Baghdad in search of his father, a solider who he has heard has been wounded by American bombs. The two agree to team up for their missions.
So begins a dark adventure, a fable, and a cautionary tale, in which the resourceful kids encounter one obstacle after another, presented by a revolving door of characters: an unsympathetic pregnant woman who cracks an unjust joke, a pervy shopkeeper who doesn’t keep his promise, a clockmaker who dupes them … you get the gist. Lamia doesn’t know that Bibi has gone into super-grandma mode after realizing the folly of her abandonment plan, parking herself in loud protestation at the police station. A kind mailman — whose special task is to deliver the autocrat his fanfare correspondence — might just turn out to be the archetypal Good Samaritan. And, tucked in Lamia’s arms, Hindi the rooster might just prove to be the Soothsayer.
For the majority of the story, Lamia and Saeed are left to their own devices, including resorting to thievery. As archetypal fairy tale structures go, each time they are chased by antagonists, they just miss the adults who can help them, as the cast of characters fans out across hospital, market, cafe, and mosque. The war-torn metropolis feels mappable as Hadi stitches together a narrative kissed by fate at each turn of the alleyway. For the kids, it’s as though humanity’s carnival of deception and despair has engulfed them.
To Hadi’s immense credit, he doesn’t infantilize the child characters. Nor are they forced to grow up or “come of age” per an obvious trajectory. They are caught up by the logics of war and autocracy. As protagonists, they spring towards their goals, but adults keep disappointing them, and their quiver of tactics and reserves of luck threaten to run out. The feat of “The President’s Cake” is that Hadi shows Lamia and Saeed both as mere kids who bicker and insult each other, but also as becoming subjects of a regime they had never grasped beyond school assembly, where they routinely chanted the proclamation, “With our souls and blood, we will redeem Saddam.”
As they search for eggs, sugar, and father figures, they glimpse as only kids can the encroaching cost on their souls, and try to redeem themselves when the chaos becomes too much by playing a staring game. Who will blink first?
Unblinkingly, Hadi does not aspire to filmmaking in auteur mode. A shot of a fighter jet against a minaret may not boast the luxuriant beauty of a signature Cuaron black-and-white image of a plane’s reflection on a puddle of water, but it is ensconced in an aesthetic that Hadi argues is relevant for the storytelling. He displays strong command over authenticity of period, place, and casting of supporting actors. The occasional swoop of craft musculature — such as Lamia’s encroachment into majestic procession displaying a telling variety of social actors hoisting a garlanded cut out of Hussein — is decidedly in service of characterization and plot.
Hadi also extracts sharp performances from his memorable non-actors. Nayyef as Lamia always has her neck perched a little outward, indicating a perpetual alertness, and eyes shining with tearful wisdom, indicating courage that hasn’t yet crowed. Qasem as Saeed has a worldliness that at a moment’s notice can slide into world-weariness. In one scene of respite, song and dance in a cafe, he gives a look of longing that generates goosebumps. Hadi waits until a pivotal moment in the second half to give a closeup of Khreibat as Bibi: only then do we notice the ancient tattoos on her face, and register for a moment that Iraq is, in fact, an ancient culture.
“The President’s Cake” is a case of relatively modest filmmaking that becomes rich because archetype and characterization coordinate the story world. In some stretches, though, the filmmaking and the narrative urgency fall a bit flat. Political imagery begins to feel one-note. Scenes don’t feel cohesive at their edges, even if their inner logic is solid. As new antagonists arrive, the stakes and the tension don’t always ratchet accordingly, resulting in the occasional sense of the anti-climactic.
The line from Gilgamesh at the top of the film is about how the lord directed him to look at the water and see his loved one. Hadi bookmarks this at the end, with a lilting shot of Lamia peering into the marshes. As audiences, though, our investments in her and Saeed are ultimately rewarded. We leave wondering what became of them and where they are today. Did they stare helplessly into the sordid destiny of their land, or did they blink?
Grade: B
“The President’s Cake” premiered at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival. It is currently seeking U.S. distribution.
Want to stay up to date on IndieWire’s film reviews and critical thoughts? Subscribe here to our newly launched newsletter, In Review by David Ehrlich, in which our Chief Film Critic and Head Reviews Editor rounds up the best new reviews and streaming picks along with some exclusive musings — all only available to subscribers.
