As a child growing up in 1990s Iraq, Hasan Hadi feared one particular day each year: when teachers would pick children who had to prepare gifts for Saddam Hussein's birthday, a compulsory national holiday. The most expensive item was a cake, which many families couldn't afford in a country ruled by a kleptocrat and crumbling under American sanctions.
"One of my friends actually got picked for the cake. It was the most difficult item because there was such a scarcity in flour and sugar and all of these food items," Hadi told Morning Edition host Leila Fadel. He says his friend couldn't gather the cake ingredients, got expelled from school and was forced to join Saddam's child soldiers.
That fearful memory inspired his debut feature film, The President's Cake, where 9-year-old Lamia, played by Baneen Ahmed Nayyef, is tasked with baking a cake for the Iraqi leader. "Everything is on the table" if she fails, Hadi said, including "your life, your livelihood, your parents, your own personal safety."
The director says brutal regimes like Saddam's are intentionally ambiguous about exactly what the consequences might be for any particular perceived shortcoming. But one thing is clear: punishment will be swift and brutal. The regime was able to control the population by terrifying it, he explains.
"It's so intentional to keep all these things ambiguous in order to create such an impactful fear element inside you," Hadi said. "Because then you just do it. You don't think about it, you just obey them. You don't try to question them."
Lamia embarks on a life-altering hero's journey to scrape together eggs, flour and sugar. She's accompanied by her pet rooster, Hindi, and her best friend, Saeed, who is played by Sajad Mohamad Qasem. Like most of the other featured actors, the two child stars are untrained and this is their first film. Their interactions feel disarmingly spontaneous and genuine.
Shot on location in Baghdad and the Mesopotamian marshes using a digital camera, the movie has a grainy and saturated look suggestive of an old film. At Cannes, it was crowned with the Caméra d'Or best first feature film prize last year.
There is warmth and humor despite a brutal society where, Lamia warns, "the walls have ears." Hadi recalls how the surveillance state would incentivize and coerce citizens into spying on each other to quash dissent.
"You cannot trust anyone, including your parents, including your partner, your friends … It's like you're growing up in an abusive family," he said. "You grow up with a constant feeling of danger. And that somehow changes the nature of society, the ethical lines, the moral fabric, somehow all of these change. And it turns you into someone else."
All this is shown through a child's eyes, which also capture moments of heartbreaking beauty, like the marshes through which she punts while her grandmother recounts the Epic of Gilgamesh.
"It's about the power of love, friendship and sacrifice under wartime sanctions and dictatorship," Hadi said.
The film may be set in the 1990s, but it resonates today, against the backdrop of rising authoritarianism globally.
"There are lots of red flags all over the world. There is some sort of nostalgia for authoritarian leaders," Hadi said. "That's really the danger, when your birthday becomes a national theme, when your name becomes something that you see everywhere. This is all reminding me of my period during growing up in Iraq."
The broadcast version of this story was produced by Kaity Kline. The digital version was edited by Treye Green.
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