Hasan Hadi, Director of ‘The President’s Cake,’ on the Journey of Making Iraq’s First Film at Cannes
- Leslie
- 3 minutes ago
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Clients: Hasan Hadi – Writer, Director; Leah Chen Baker – Producer
Iraqi director Hasan Hadi’s debut feature, “The President’s Cake,” which screens in Directors’ Fortnight, is the first film from Iraq at to play in Cannes. Set in Iraq the 1990s, it also “fills a gap,” he says, because that period in Iraq has not yet really been depicted on screen.
“The President’s Cake” depicts a time in the country when people are struggling with food shortages, due to U.S. sanctions. The film follows a 9-year-old girl named Lamia who gets picked at school to bake Saddam Hussein’s birthday cake and must become very resourceful to find the necessary ingredients or face the consequences. The director, who grew up in southern Iraq during wartime before traveling to the U.S. where he is now an adjunct professor at NYU’s Graduate Film Program, spoke to Variety about his extraordinary feat.
It’s obviously a rarity to see a film from Iraq and especially one about this period and the impact of U.S. sanctions. How did the story germinate?
It really came from my childhood memories growing up in Iraq. I was actually picked during one of these draws, though I was the flower boy and there was not as much pressure. But I had friends who got picked [to make the president’s cake]. And their life changed dramatically because of that draw. So it was like a dark comedy situation. I feel like I could not escape from writing this story, which is part of my memory of growing up in Iraq, and part of the memory of my people, too. It was a bit astonishing for me that there was no film about this, so I wrote the script during my last year at NYU.
What are your cinematic influences and in particular what are they for this film?
I didn’t grow up with cinemas. I wish I could tell you: “Oh, I went to the movie theater and I watched this movie.” I didn’t have that opportunity. It was mostly VHS tapes and later DVDs that we actually had to smuggle in. Anyway, my love for film was born on a small TV screen that I’d watch alone at night when no one else was using it. That said, I am aware that there are some similarities between this film and the works of [Abbas] Kiarostami and some people have said it reminds them of what [Vittorio] De Sica did “Bicycle Thieves.” I am aware of that but I never tried to mimic them.
What wree the challenges of shooting in Iraq?
That was a crucial aspect for me. We had lots of offers of people saying: “Hey, we will fully fund this film, but we need to shoot this film outside Iraq.” And I was like: “Absolutely not.” And one of the reasons I wanted to shoot in Iraq is to show Iraq. I don’t know if you agree or not, but I think this is the first time that people will be seeing Iraq in this way, from this prism. And I don’t think people will expect that Iraq looks like this, or has these kind of visuals. But of course it was very challenging. We lack real industry. We don’t have a cinematic crew. We don’t have the work ethic that have been developed in countries like the U.S. and Europe. But at the same time we also had some really special access. We shot in locations that in any other country would have cost thousands of dollars. I shot near Ziggurat Ur, which is the oldest building in civilization, 7,000 years old. I shot there very easily. I shot in the marshes. I shot in a restaurant where Saddam used to eat when he was young.
Analysts expect big growth in Iraq as a movie market because of a pent-up appetite for movies. What’s your take?
Yes, that’s true but unfortunately we are still in the phase of discovering commercial cinema, not so much arthouse cinema. You know what I mean? I don’t want to call it arthouse because I think that’s a degrading term. So let’s call it the cinema of the ’70s or ’80s, or even the ’60s, or whatever. To discover those movies you have to have a real desire to watch them. We’re not New York. We don’t have theaters that are just for indie cinema or foreign films. We’re still very much into the commercial cinema world. But I’m positive that in a few years, or decades, this will change because now we are finally open to receiving all these films and I think people will outgrow the commercial space and veer into more authentic and original storytelling.