Oscar Contender ‘The President’s Cake’ Explores the Loss of Innocence and the Cruelty of Blind Obedience
- Director Hasan Hadi crafts a tragicomic, deeply emotional portrait of life under Iraqi authoritarian rule.
Set in 1990s Iraq under dictatorship and sanctions, “The President’s Cake” follows 9‑year‑old Lamia, who is chosen to bake the President’s birthday cake by her school. What should be a festive task becomes a perilous mission, as she scrambles to find ingredients alone in a society where scarcity, fear, disaster, and loyalty to power shape every living moment.
Hasan Hadi crafts a tragicomic, deeply emotional portrait of life under authoritarian rule. Through Lamia’s seemingly small but desperate quest to bake a cake, the film captures the tension, absurdity, and how easily children can go missing in struggling sea of humanity, where everyone is burdened by a quiet despair of a doomed daily existence.
Lamia’s story intertwines with that of Saeed, a boy surviving through begging and theft, and her tender bond with “Hindi,” her beloved rooster and emotional anchor. Their journey exposes glimpses of childhood hope, resilience, confusion, and innocence against a backdrop of cruelty, greed, corruption, adultery, bribes, and predatory behavior. Prosperous shopkeepers cheating starving children, and a transactional barter system where everything is for sale. Where desperation becomes the biggest sin.
The narrative crescendos with the death of Lamia’s grandmother and the haunting image of Lamia clutching her cane. A symbol of loss and ferocious dignity of a woman who fought for every scrap in her life. In a final act of resilience, Lamia and Saeed bake the cake together: Mixing flour for life, sugar for sweetness, and eggs for fertility.
As I watched the film, and followed Lamia on her quest, I thought of my mother, as she gave me the ingredients to mix up batters for so many cakes we baked together. My cake always worked out beautifully under her guidance. Without formal training, I had slowly imbibed the art of baking a cake as a child, and now when i crave a slice of a moist pound cake, a crumbly walnut cake or a sinful chocolate cake with rich chocolate ganache, my hands automatically reach out for the cake tin, baking powder, self-raising flour, a stick of butter, and three eggs and I start mixing ingredients stepping back into my childhood.
The act of baking becomes a healing rhythm and the tastebuds perk up with the memory of delicious slices of flavorful cakes my mother baked for me. Today, the ingredients are in my pantry or just a few minutes away available to order on Amazon Prime, but my heart turns over in grief as the little girl in me mirrors the anxiety of Lamia on a mission to bake a cake.
I see my eight year old self staring down the glass of the round oven at the rising cake, but I can’t imagine scurrying down to strange streets trying to source the ingredients for Lamia’s cake. But Lamia is determined, she wants to bake the cake for the president. In her journey, she grapples with anxiety, apathy, scorn, fear, despair, and also an unexpected but wonderful companionship of a Saeed.
Both children mix the cake batter together, exhausted from their travails, and misfortunes but still resilient in spirit, flavored with innocence of childhood. The children do not fail at their assignment, but the world fails them. Their humble homemade cake contrasts cruelly with the President’s lavish birthday ceremony. A blatant display of power. The film ends in tragedy as an air raid erases the last fragments of innocence, freezing Lamia and Saeed in a glazed gaze of inevitable acceptance of their fate.
Hadi employs non-professional actors to create a striking sense of realism and immediacy. The etched face of Lamia’s grandmother. Each crease tells a story of loss and lamentation. The children’s performances are raw, spontaneous and mesmerizing, grounding the film’s political critique in human emotion.
The cinematography, rich in texture and atmosphere, evokes both desolation and fragile beauty. The curved gondola-like boats navigating the gorgeous marshes of Iraq, dust, the crowded markets, people in lines to get one jerry can of fresh water, struggling to buy essentials, the fat grocers with loaded godowns, the dim flickering light, a red balloon floating along cobblestone streets, the rounded minarets on the terrace of a large mosque.
Ardent prayers offered for stealing a cup of flower, and the image of a little girl perched on the back of the bus to see the dragon at a fair because she does not have money to buy a ticket.
“The President’s Cake” explores the loss of innocence, the cruelty of blind obedience, and the endurance of human connection amid collapse. The director highlights the surreal absurdity of cultish following through empathy rather than cynicism.
Premiering at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival (Directors’ Fortnight), the film was met with critical acclaim and shortlisted for the 2026 Academy Awards. The President’s Cake opens in US theaters on February 6th, 2026. I do not think, I can eat a piece of cake again without thinking of Lamia.
The President’s Cake (2025)
Director & Writer: Hasan Hadi
Starring: Baneen Ahmad Nayyef, Waheed Thabet Khreibat, Sajad Mohamad Qasem.
With one foot in Huntsville, Alabama, the other in her birth home, India, and a heart steeped in humanity, Monita Soni writes as a contemplative practice. She has published hundreds of poems, movie reviews, book critiques, and essays, and contributed to combined literary works. Her two books are “My Light Reflections” and “Flow Through My Heart.” You can hear her commentaries on Sundial Writers Corner, WLRH 89.3 FM.