The President's Cake, originally titled Mamlaket al-qasab, literally "The Kingdom of the Reed," is a feature film directed by Hasan Hadi, his first feature film. It premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2025. ---- A Chronicle of a Country at War ---- The film takes us back to Iraq in the early 1990s during the first Gulf War, where we primarily follow nine-year-old Lamia, played by Baneen Ahmad Nayyef, her grandmother Bibi, played by Waheed Thabet Khreibat, and her classmate and friend Saeed, played by Sajad Mohamad Qasem, who live in the marshes along the Euphrates River, in a country under international embargo following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.
It is in this context that Lamia is randomly selected from her third-grade class to bake a cake for President Saddam Hussein's birthday, at a time when the country is experiencing shortages, skyrocketing prices, and the militarization of youth and society is on the rise.
Without money to buy eggs, flour, and sugar, Bibi and Lamia set off for the nearest town to trade for the necessary ingredients. A series of adventures ensues, forcing Lamia and Saeed to use their resourcefulness to acquire the cake's ingredients. The children encounter numerous adults, mostly merchants, throughout the town, while Bibi, meanwhile, finds herself in trouble with the police at a local station. Throughout the film, the viewer is primarily confronted with the disintegration of most bonds of solidarity, coupled with the repeated abuse of power by most of the secondary characters, especially the merchants and officials, perhaps veering at times into questionable pathos; possibly one of the only criticisms to be made of the film and its team.
The President's Cake is, nevertheless, a very beautiful film, featuring poignant performances from its actors and actresses, and brilliantly directed with, for example, superb shots of the Euphrates River, and offering a highly credible reconstruction of Iraq during the First Gulf War.
Hasan Hadi, The President's Cake, 102 minutes, released in theaters on February 4, 2026.
It's a subtle film that denounces without being heavy-handed: the consequences of sanctions declared by the international community and the UN are made palpable through the mention of exorbitant prices demanded by shopkeepers for even the smallest goods, or through the occasional mention of a medicine shortage; the war and American bombs are made visible through wounded soldiers and the constant, menacing ballet of jet planes in the sky; and so on.
The Consequences of Imperialist Wars
The President's Cake is therefore a good reminder of reality, showing concretely the material consequences of American and Western policies regarding international justice through economic sanctions and bombings, hiding behind the "liberation of peoples" or the "promotion of democracy," and targeting a supposedly faltering regime.
The regime then sank even deeper into the cult of personality, militarization, and fanaticism, while the supposed targets of these policies-Saddam Hussein and his court-remained safe in their palaces and bunkers, continuing to enjoy lavish birthday cakes, suggesting that the dictator and his inner circle did not seem, as one might expect, to suffer the consequences of war and hardship.
Warning: This is a film that, while not gory or voyeuristic, is harsh and spares the viewer virtually nothing.
Ultimately, we can see in this film a critique of Western imperialism, showing its unvarnished consequences on the ground. The film also avoids the trap of portraying the national bourgeoisie as a bulwark against imperialism, but, by offering no solutions, it nevertheless leads to a paralyzing political pessimism. This reminds us more than ever of the need to organize collectively in the face of the march to war and capitalist barbarity.
Oli (UCL Alsace)
https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Voir-Hasan-Hadi-Le-Gateau-du-president
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Source: A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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