DHAHRAN: You know a film is special when it simultaneously elicits sobs and laughter from an audience. Iraqi filmmaker Hasan Hadi’s debut feature “The President’s Cake,” which screened at last week’s Saudi Film Festival, is special.
It’s set in the Iraq in which Hadi grew up under the tyranny of former President Saddam Hussein’s regime. More than three decades on, the director has intricately crafted a film documenting the price — both emotional and practical — paid by the Iraqi people during and after the first Gulf War.
Nine-year-old orphan Lamia (a breakout performance by newcomer Baneen Ahmed Nayyef) lives with her grandmother Bibi (Waheed Thabet Khreibat) and her pet cockerel Hindi in the countryside. Money is scarce.
Lamia’s third-grade teacher announces that, ahead of the president’s upcoming birthday, students will have their names drawn at random (although odds are stacked against those the teacher doesn’t like) to decide who will have the ‘honor’ of either cleaning the school, bringing fresh fruit, providing juice, or — most prestigious of all — baking a cake for the celebration.
Even the nine-year-olds know that the unspoken consequences of failure — the risk of being written up and reported — would be catastrophic for their entire family. So when Lamia is selected as baker, even though the necessary ingredients are not easily available or affordable, she has no choice but to comply.
