At a time when Donald Trump is threatening to destroy “a whole civilisation” in the Middle East, The President’s Cake, puts us on the ground during those days of the early 1990s, when the United States was applying the squeeze to Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein, following his attack on Kuwait. Hasan Hadi’s directorial debut reveals the price paid by ordinary people when a superpower imposes crippling sanctions and military strikes on a nation already suffering under a corrupt, brutal regime.
What’s most wonderful about this movie is the way Hadi frames his narrative through the experiences of a nine-year-old girl named Lamia (Baneen Ahmad Nayyef), who draws the short straw at school and is given the onerous task of baking a cake for Saddam’s birthday. It’s as if we are watching a bizarre quest, with this stubborn schoolgirl going in search of ingredients in the big city, overcoming one obstacle after another.
For us, baking a cake might not sound like an earth-shattering responsibility, but when the teacher tells you that failure to produce the goods may result in the torture and victimisation of your family, it takes on a sense of urgency. What makes it even worse, was that in Iraq at the time, sanctions had made it difficult to obtain the bare necessities of life. Eggs, flour, sugar and baking powder were in short supply and selling for high prices.