The President’s Cake: Iraqi film shines at Cannes, eyes Oscar nomination
Shafaq News/ Iraqi filmmaker Hassan Hadi’s debut feature, The President’s Cake, made a powerful impact at the Cannes Film Festival this weekend, earning critical acclaim and officially entering the race for the Academy Awards.
Premiering in the Directors’ Fortnight section, the film has been hailed as one of Cannes’ breakout titles. Agence France-Presse described it as a work that “vastly outshines” several Palme d’Or contenders and may become the first Iraqi film ever nominated for an Oscar.
Set in the southern Iraqi marshes during the early 1990s, the story follows Lamia, a nine-year-old girl chosen to bake a birthday cake for Saddam Hussein—a forced tribute of loyalty under the regime. With food scarce under UN sanctions, Lamia and her grandmother embark on a desperate journey to barter for ingredients, revealing a world shaped by economic ruin and political fear.
Hadi, drawing on personal memories from his childhood under sanctions, told AFP, “Sanctions empower dictators. They hoard the little that remains and grow more brutal. Never in history has a president gone hungry because of sanctions.”
He added that he didn’t taste cake himself until after the 2003 US-led invasion.
Filmed entirely in the marshes—an area Saddam once sought to destroy—Hadi emphasized the symbolic power of the location, noting, “The marshes stayed and Saddam went away.”
The production team recreated 1990s Iraq with striking accuracy, from period wardrobes and hairstyles to filming inside a restaurant once frequented by Saddam. Hadi insisted on historical authenticity to highlight the human toll of sanctions and state repression.
The President’s Cake serves as both artistic expression and political critique. Hadi criticized economic embargoes as tools that often strengthen authoritarian regimes rather than weaken them. He also welcomed the recent announcement by US President Donald Trump lifting sanctions on Syria after Bashar al-Assad’s fall.
“I don't think the sanctions helped in any way to get rid of Bashar,” Hadi said. “But definitely empowered him to kill more people, and torture more people.”
