Key Highlights
- Watch on Deadline The drama follows Lamia (Banin Ahmad Nayef), an impoverished 9-year-old who is picked to bake a birthday cake to celebrate the president’s birthday.
- It’s a near-impossible task amid the sanctions, but failure to deliver could lead to prison or death for her family.
- Hadi reveals that the story is inspired by the fate of one his childhood classmates, who was picked to make the cake in real life.
- RELATED: ‘The President’s Cake’ Review: First-Time Iraqi Director Hasan Hadi Delivers One Of The Fest’s Genuine Gems – Cannes Film Festival “He failed and got expelled from the school and then got recruited to Saddam’s children’s army,” the filmmaker said during Deadline’s Contenders Film: International panel.
- “His destiny completely changed, and that really haunted me, even into adulthood.” Hadi studied is an alumnus of the Grad Film program at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and developed the feature with the support of the Sundance Lab before returning to Iraq, where he now is living.
