‘The President’s Cake’ Review: Hasan Hadi’s Layered Drama is as Entertaining as it is Compelling [A-] TIFF

There exists a spectrum of sad movies that are about kids but not for kids. On the lowest end of the spectrum, something like Spike Jonze’s Where the Wild Things Are or Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio is perfectly safe for older children to watch, but it’s clear depressed adults are the real target audience. A step up in intensity is something like the mournful yet hopeful Beasts of the Southern Wild; a few steps further, the R-rated tragedy of The Florida Project. Higher up are war and horror films that show children living (and dying) in situations no human being should ever have to endure – movies like Pan’s Labyrinth (one of my all-time favorites, but not one I revisit frequently), Grave of the Fireflies (the most depressing anime of all time, though shockingly that one was marketed to kids in its initial release as a double-feature with My Neighbor Totoro), and Come and See (I’m still scared to watch that one).

The President’s Cake, written and directed by Hasan Hadi, isn’t quite Grave of the Fireflies-level upsetting – at least, not until its last few minutes. Set in Iraq during the Gulf War, the film’s ability to take the perspective of 9-year-old orphan girl Lamia (Baneen Ahmad Nayyef – an exceptional discovery in a cast of all first-time actors) offers enough entertainment to work dark subject matter into something of a crowdpleaser (it won the audience award in Cannes’ Directors Fortnight section, along with the festival’s Camera d’Or for first-time filmmakers). Like Abbas Kiarostami’s Where Is the Friend’s House?, it turns a school assignment into a full-blown Hero’s Journey. The experience is charming, beautifully shot, and at times even funny – with a scene-stealing rooster sidekick, to boot – but never forgets the horrors that drive and encroach upon Lamia’s adventure, building to an absolute gut punch of an ending.

Lamia, who lives in a marshland boating community with her grandmother Bibi (Waheed Thabet Khreibat), is assigned by the bad luck of the draw to bake a cake for her class in celebration of Saddam Hussein’s birthday. However, food’s hard to come by and increasingly expensive in light of the United Nations Security Council’s sanctions against Iraq. When Bibi, Lamia, and her pet rooster Hindi get a ride into the city, the girl thinks they’re going to get cake ingredients, but her grandma has another agenda for the trip. Lamia soon runs away, joining up with her pickpocket friend Saeed (Sajad Mohamad Qasem) as she seeks flour, sugar, eggs, and baking powder for the president’s cake.

Hadi paints a portrait of 1990s Iraq as a society pushed to its absolute limits, simultaneously under attack from outside forces and abused internally by an autocratic leader demanding his own luxury. Lamia wants to get her ingredients honestly without stealing, but morals are hard to keep when almost every new adult she encounters is out to scam her or worse. The subplot following Bibi’s quest to find her missing granddaughter spotlights the tragedy of a government bureaucracy too overwhelmed with both dead bodies and birthday parades to be capable of functioning.

The President’s Cake is the first Iraqi film to play at Cannes. It’s the first Iraqi film I’ve ever watched; given how few films are produced in Iraq, let alone ones with high-profile international releases promoted by American executive producers like Eric Roth (Dune), Chris Columbus (Home Alone), and Marielle Heller (Can You Ever Forgive Me?), it’s likely to be many other viewers’ first as well. I can’t speak to how it plays within its specific cultural and historical context (for what it’s worth, Hadi says much of the story is inspired by his own childhood memories, but at least one Iraqi critic has accused it of inaccuracies).

What I can speak to is the universality of this movie’s power. A story about children struggling for food amidst a campaign of enforced starvation is going to resonate with anyone paying attention to the world today, and the background of an authoritarian leader demanding celebration while his subjects suffer is going to hit hard in an era of rising global fascism. The President’s Cake never gets preachy with its themes, instead sharing its political anger with the viewer through our empathy for its characters. Under the worst of circumstances, Lamia and Saeed are still children who bicker and play games and find ways to keep going even as the adult world fails them. When what should be the great victory of their journey is thrown into terrifying uncertainty, they still have their games and each other – for however long they have left.

Grade: A-

This review is from the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival where The President’s Cake had its North American premiere. It is Iraq’s selection for the International Feature Film Oscar for the 2026 Academy Awards. Sony Pictures Classics will release the film theatrically in the U.S.