Iraqi director Hasan Hadi’s first feature The President’s Cake (2025) had its U.S. premiere at the 48th edition of the Mill Valley Film Festival (“MVFF”). The first Iraqi feature to play at Cannes, The President’s Cake won the festival’s Camera D’Or. It also made history for being the first Iraqi film to make the official 15-film shortlist for Best International Feature Film (formerly Foreign Language Film) for the 98th Academy Awards scheduled to broadcast mid-March, although it did not advance to the final list of five nominees. Regardless, the honor and achievement is considerable.
Having streamed The President’s Cake to preview for MVFF, I was delighted that my recent visit to San Francisco afforded the opportunity to catch the film in theater introduced by executive producers Chris and Eleanor Columbus and accompanied by director Hasan Hadi. Picked up by Sony Pictures Classics, The President’s Cake opened in Bay Area Theaters February 13, including AMC Metreon 16, San Francisco. In Boise, Idaho, it opens at The Flicks on February 27.
As I wrote for MVFF: “Negotiating, cajoling, begging, at times even stealing, Lamia, her pet rooster Hindi, and her friend Saeed range a day in the city, offering finely-drawn glimpses of Baghdad in the early aughts (with murals of Saddam Hussein painted on nearly every wall), contrasted against the impoverished but tranquil marshes where Lamia lives with an infirm grandmother. She and Saeed frequently play a game where they try to outstare each other; a practice in perseverance and focus, essential to surviving the rain of American bombs as Hussein’s dictatorial regime nears the end of its 24-year run.”
After the screening, San Francisco Film Society Executive Director Anne Lai joined Hadi for conversation, during which I was able to briefly converse with the director. Hadi had mentioned that he was proud of the film’s multiple layers and that he believed it could bear repeated viewings. I confirmed this was so as—in my second viewing—I noticed things I had not noticed before. Early in the film, Lamia (in a wholly natural performance by Baneen Ahmad Nayyef) is rowing across the river with her grandmother Bibi (again, another unpretentious characterization by first-time actor Waheed Thabet Khreibat) who offers Lamia this advice: “if you look deeply into the river, God promises the pure in heart that they shall see the image of their loved one". Later in the film, Lamia looks deeply into the river and does see the image of her loved one. I couldn’t believe that I didn’t catch this the first go-round.
I then asked Hadi: “In our current moment here in our country we have a president who wants to put his face and his name on everything, and I was amazed in your film that it seemed like every wall had a portrait of Saddam Hussein. In terms of the logistics of location shooting, are those portraits still there or did you put them up to re-create the time period?”
Hadi confirmed that he re-created the time period and recalled that—when he was a kid—Saddam had over forty million images of himself throughout Iraq, whether in posters, framed portraits both painted and photographed, and statues. Everywhere he went there were at least two or three images of Saddam. Walking home from school—sometimes with a good grade, sometimes with a bad grade—he would analyze all the images of Saddam’s face to determine “Oh, he’s laughing. He’s mad.” It was common to see his face everywhere.
Powerful men, he added, usually like to celebrate their birthday and are accustomed to putting their names everywhere. Iraq is one of the oldest civilizations of the world with some very old structures. Saddam managed to put his mark even on them. He would modify them.
“I don’t want to get too political,” Hadi admitted humbly, “because it took me almost three years to get this film made, but what I would want to say to people is that freedom is a fragile thing and needs to be protected. It’s there, but then it can go away rapidly.”
