The President’s Cake

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https://www.cinemanova.com.au/films/presidents-cake-the

Date Reviewed: 04/04/2026

I’ll be honest, I knew very little about our setting as the film opened. It facilitates this by providing a scene-setting line as well as an opening shot that demonstrates the kind of film we are watching. The landscape is bleak, the people even more so, but a determination to continue on regardless persists through the film.

The President’s Cake is much more a character study than a film about cooking. This is a fantastic debut by Hasan Hadi, and the film won the Cannes Audience Award and the Caméra d’Or. Fans of Julia & Julia will be disappointed, but fans of good cinema will not be. I like Julia & Julia; it’s just this is not a cooking film; it’s a looking for ingredients film. This is a quest film, and that kind of film I think everybody can enjoy. 

The characters are superb and uniquely positioned to comment on the world they inhabit. The President’s Cake reminds me of Bernstein’s Candide in its picaresque ability to use characters to tell stories. Most of these characters are designed, in their positive and negative ways, to represent how most people react to authoritarian government and their society slowly collapsing around them. There are profiteers, loyalists, perverts, cowards, and people struggling through no matter the cost. Lamia is the best example of this, and Baneen Ahmed Nayyef is the standout star. She has a subdued but deeply emotional performance.

Placards and posters of Saddam Hussein can be spotted throughout the film. He is almost a physical presence in the film. Reminders of the regime in which the characters inhabit and the real-time effects of authoritarian government on the people in this film. Hussein has an interfering role in these characters’ lives. The whole time watching this film, what I kept wondering is if these characters would be different if they lived under a different kind of leader. What would The President’s Cake look like if Hussein did not exist? A silly question but an interesting thought provoker, I think.

The overall message of The President’s Cake is not about Saddam Hussein or the individuals’ characters. For me, it’s about the sheer waste that accumulates in authoritarian governments. Figures of authority (teachers, police, etc.) are too preoccupied with the president's birthday to actually lead, govern, or maintain order.

Society slowly begins to collapse when one man leads and directs it because any community of people is by its very nature collaborative and adaptable. Through The President’s Cake, I think the audience can see something being said about the natural state of society. I’m not suggesting in this review what the natural state of society is, just that The President’s Cake is a damning indictment of authoritarian leadership as a form of government.

Reviewed by Nicolas Van Der Haar