Dir. Hasan Hadi
2025 | 105 mins | Iraq, US, Qatar | Arabic with English Subtitles
Baneen Ahmad Nayyef, Sajad Mohamad Qasem, Waheed Thabet Khreibat

Showing Times

• Fri 13 Feb: 3pm + 5.30pm
• Sat 14 Feb: 1pm + 5.30pm
• Sun 15 Feb: 8.15pm
• Mon 16 Feb: 7.30pm
• Tue 17 Feb: 3pm + 7.30pm
• Wed 18 Feb: 3.00pm + 5.30pm
• Thu 19 Feb: 3pm + 8.10pm

Audio Described headsets available from Box Office at all screenings.

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Iraqi writer-director Hasan Hadi’s exceptional debut The President’s Cake is a detailed portrait of life under dictatorship, as seen through the struggles of a nine-year-old girl. Winner of the Camera d’Or at Cannes, it’s Iraq’s submission for Best International Feature Films at the 2026 Oscars.

Iraq, 1991: Lamia lives in poverty with her ailing grandmother, Bibi. Disaster strikes when Lamia is asked to supply the cake for her school class’s mandatory celebration of Saddam Hussein’s birthday. In other circumstances, in other countries, this might be a light responsibility; in Hussein’s Iraq, crushed by international sanctions, it’s a nightmare. Bibi and Lamia can’t afford the ingredients — and the last family that didn’t comply was dragged through the streets. Enlisting Saaed to help, and accompanied by her pet chicken Hindi, Lamia struggles to find what she needs, as the adults she encounters cheat, rob and betray her. Compassionate, tragic and comic, Hadi’s film balances light and dark in its child’s eye view.

BBFC Rating
Rated 12A – infrequent strong language, child sexual abuse references, sexual threat

Venue: Studio 74, Exeter Phoenix

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