There are moments when cinema captures life in such a pristine way that fiction strikes us as if it were reality. The President’s Cake (2025) by Hasan Hadi is the perfect example. The deeper we go into its narrative, the more we realize we are not watching a traditional work of fiction. Everyday life is presented so intimately that we struggle to believe we are witnessing a carefully constructed mise-en-scène.

We are in 1990s Iraq, and it is two days before President Saddam Hussein’s birthday. It is “draw day,” when schools across the country randomly select students to assign them gifts that must be offered in celebration of the dictator’s anniversary. Lamia (Baneen Ahmad Nayyef) is anxious about being selected, and her grandmother Bibi (Waheed Thabet Khreibat) suggests a trick to avoid the draw. Things do not go as planned, and Lamia ends up being chosen to bake the president’s birthday cake.

With The President’s Cake, Hasan Hadi portrays 1990s Iraq to deliver a powerful political critique. Through the perspective of young Lamia and her friend Saeed (Sajad Mohamad Qasem), the director shows how an authoritarian regime can distort even the most ordinary aspects of life. The system permeates everything, leaving no space even for childhood. By contrasting the innocence of these children with the brutality and oppression of the regime, Hadi achieves a forceful statement. Lamia’s assignment is not optional; it is enforced obedience under the threat of punishment that could cost her life.

The film’s visual aesthetic features a vignette effect, with darkened, rounded edges framing the image. It feels as if we are looking at a memory, an intimate recollection of children who present reality through their eyes, while we absorb the political context through their experience. The birthday cake becomes a powerful metaphor—something trivial transformed into an odyssey, much like all ordinary tasks under a regime fueled by fear and absurd personality cults.

The President’s Cake is neorealist cinema, shot on real locations, with most of the cast being non-professional actors, aiming to portray human tragedy in the most organic way possible. The film balances adversity, despair, and the humor that comes from childhood innocence. It is impossible not to be moved by this powerful work from Hasan Hadi. By the time the film ends, we feel as if we have walked too close to a reality that is far from fiction.