The President’s Cake(2026)

1h 46m
- Drama

Release Date: Feb 6, 2026 | Limited

In 1990s Iraq, a young schoolgirl is ordered to bake a cake for the president’s birthday, a task that sounds simple but carries terrifying consequences. With limited resources and rising fear, she sets out across her neighbourhood to gather ingredients, navigating power, scarcity and unspoken danger. The premise unfolds as a quiet yet piercing look at childhood under authoritarian rule.

Releases

Original Release | Feb 6, 2026

Feb 27, 2026 | Moderate

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Technical Specifications

Sound Mix: Dolby 5.1

Aspect Ratio: Scope

Summaries

Plot Summary

The President’s Cake is a 2024 Iraqi drama and the feature directorial debut of Hasan Hadi, who also wrote the screenplay. Set during the Saddam Hussein–era Iraq, the film centres on Lamia, a young girl living in a tightly controlled society where even school assignments are instruments of fear. When her class is instructed to bake a birthday cake for the president, Lamia understands that failure is not an option and that the stakes are far higher than grades or praise. The story unfolds over a single, tense day as Lamia moves through her community searching for basic ingredients that are scarce due to sanctions and poverty. Each interaction reveals layers of anxiety, survival instincts, and quiet resistance, seen through a child’s eyes. The setting grounds the film in everyday life while exposing how authoritarian power seeps into the most intimate spaces, including classrooms and homes. An Iraqi–American co-production, The President’s Cake premiered in the Directors’ Fortnight section at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Caméra d’Or, marking a major international breakthrough for Iraqi cinema. Intimate, restrained, and emotionally sharp, the film is designed for audiences drawn to human-scale political stories, coming-of-age dramas, and socially rooted world cinema.

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Fun Facts

Nine-year-old Baneen Ahmad Nayyef stars as Lamia, tasked with sourcing scarce cake ingredients amid 1990s Iraq sanctions and war shortages for Saddam Hussein's mandatory school birthday celebration, where failure risks imprisonment or execution for her family.