Scene from The President’s Cake — Lamia (Baneen Ahmad Neyyef) speaks with a vendor while holding a rooster in an Iraqi market.
Baneen Ahmad Neyyef as Lamia in The President’s Cake, directed by Hasan Hadi. Credit: Sony Pictures Classics

The President’s Cake, which won two awards at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and screened at Sydney Film Festival, Melbourne International Film Festival, BFI London Film Festival, and Mill Valley Film Festival, explores life under Saddam Hussein through an intimate lens.

Part drama and part history, the film follows one Marsh Arab family navigating the dangerous absurdity of mandatory cake-making for the dictator’s birthday celebration. Set in Iraq’s marshlands before Hussein’s ecological destruction that displaced hundreds of thousands, The President’s Cake reveals the daily reality of the Marsh people living under authoritarian rule.

Written and directed by Hasan Hadi.

Look for the The President’s Cake in 2026.

Jeanne Powell
Jeanne Powell
Jeanne is a published poet and essayist. She holds degrees from Wayne State University and the University of San Francisco. Jeanne has taught in the CS, UB and OLLI programs at universities in the City. Her books in print include MY OWN SILENCE and WORD DANCING from Taurean Horn Press.