Monday Night Cinema

The President’s Cake

(مملكة القصب)

Hasan Hadi’s assured debut follows nine-year-old Lamia, chosen by lottery to bake a birthday cake for Saddam Hussein during 1990s Iraq, where international sanctions have brought hunger and hardship.

With her grandmother and pet rooster, she travels from their remote village to the city to source ingredients. Blending child’s-eye humour with quiet sorrow, The President’s Cake is a poignant, bittersweet portrait of life under oppression.