The President’s Cake

Iraq, 1991: Lamia lives in poverty on the Mesopotamian Marshes with her ailing grandmother, Bibi. When she is chosen to supply the cake for her school’s mandatory celebration of Saddam Hussein’s birthday, it’s a nightmare. Bibi and Lamia can’t afford the ingredients, and non-compliance could mean punishment or even execution. Enlisting schoolmate Saaed to help, Lamia struggles to find what she needs, as the adults she encounters cheat, rob and betray her. Hadi’s compassionate, tragicomic film balances light and dark in its child’s eye view of the moral collapse resulting from scarcity and authoritarianism.