N ine-year-old Lamia lives in the Mesopotamian Marshes with her grandmother Bibi and pet rooster Hindi, scraping by in 1990s Iraq, battered by sanctions after the Kuwait invasion.
Schools nationwide get orders to bake cakes for Saddam Hussein’s birthday, a compulsory honor that spells trouble for anyone short on basics like flour, eggs, or sugar.
Lamia dodges selection at first but ends up picked anyway, facing school punishment or worse if she fails, since the last family who botched it got paraded through the streets like animals.
Desperate, Bibi drags her to the city to pawn her off as a foster kid for better prospects, but Lamia bolts and links up with street-smart friend Saeed, who pickpockets at a rundown theme park with his dad.
They hawk her father’s watch for cash, dodging shady adults from fake-money dealers to a creepy butcher eyeing more than meat. Bibi roams Baghdad frantically, begging indifferent cops too busy with birthday prep to care about one lost girl, while taxi driver Jasim jumps in to help track her down.
Baneen Ahmad Nayyef nails Lamia with a mix of pluck and panic, carrying the 102-minute runtime through marsh canoes to urban chaos shot vividly by Tudor Vladimir Panduru.
Sajad Mohamad Qasem brings scrappy energy as Saeed, while Waheed Thabet Khreibat grounds Bibi’s worry with quiet strength. Hasan Hadi’s script, co-written with Oscar vet Eric Roth, pulls from his own kid memories of a classmate ruined by a similar flop.
Festival Glory Hits Historic Highs
The world premiere at Cannes Directors’ Fortnight snagged the Audience Award and Caméra d’Or for best debut, the first Iraqi film ever in that section. Sony Pictures Classics snapped up North American rights quickly, kicking off qualifying runs in New York and LA from December 2025 ahead of a wider February 2026 release.
The President’s Cake (Credit: Maiden Voyage Pictures)
Iraq picked it as its Best International Feature entry for the 98th Oscars, landing on the December shortlist with 15 slots from 86 countries, a total first for any Iraqi narrative flick.
Wins piled up after: Golden Starfish for Narrative Feature at Hamptons, plus honorable mention for Nayyef’s breakout; Best Debut at Stockholm; and multiple jury prizes at CineFest Miskolc, including FIPRESCI and Ecumenical nods.
The Hamptons jury praised how it spotlights the dictatorship’s violence through the eyes of a girl trapped between tradition and fear. Sundance Labs and the Doha Film Institute backed the production, with exec producers like Chris Columbus, Marielle Heller, and Eric Roth boosting cred.
Rotten Tomatoes logs 100% from 29 critics, calling it a tragicomic gem with fluent action and poignant empathy for folks in the crosshairs.
The Hollywood Reporter and the Alliance of Women Film Journalists spotlighted Nayyef’s expressive range from joy to heartbreak, plus the film’s astute take on humanity under pressure. State media hailed the shortlist as Iraqi cinema’s resurgence; eyes are now on nominations.
Sweet Bites Hide Sour Core
ScreenRant pegs it as enjoyable and propulsive but flippant with context, churning Italian neorealist tropes for festival crowds over fresh insight.
Everyone from kids to cops seems corrupt or predatory, painting 1990s Iraq as post-2003 chaos with rampant bribes and moral rot that critics say rings false to the era’s tighter controls. Baghdad writer Nabil Salih slammed it in Jacobin for peddling stereotypes of decadent, despotic Oriental hellholes that match Western biases more than real history.
Comic irony shines in Lamia’s clock-racing hustle amid scarcity, blending bleak laughs with real tragedy, yet some darker beats, like the pedophile butcher, tip into heavy territory without full payoff.
Hadi aims to counter negative Iraq views rooted in his southern marshes and Baghdad youth, but inaccuracies let viewers dodge complicity in the sanctions’ toll. The final scenes nod to the constant U.S. shadow, but the bulk stays acidic on locals.
Shot entirely in Iraq with mostly non-pro locals, it captures period details from war fog to birthday parades, yet non-specificity makes the depleted land feel interchangeable.
Lamia’s honest streak crumbles against scams, highlighting regime rot, but the film risks flavorless dessert status by prioritizing uplift over unflinching truth. Still, its resilience yarn hooks, especially for Western eyes new to Iraqi stories, flaws notwithstanding.
On January 29, 2024, five-year-old Hind Rajab sits trapped in a car amid her family’s bodies on a Gaza City street, Israeli tanks closing in after an attack. She dials the Palestine Red Crescent Society, her tiny voice begging rescuers for help over three agonizing hours.
Director Kaouther Ben Hania centers the film in the dispatch office, where actors recreate the responders’ panic without showing the carnage. Gunfire crackles through phone lines, Hind’s cries pierce the air, but violence stays off-screen.
Motaz Malhees plays Omar, the operator who bonds with Hind, soothing her fears of darkness while his bosses scramble for safe passage. Saja Kilani embodies Rana, his supervisor, pushing protocols amid chaos, and Amer Hlehel brings Mahdi, the coordinator, tangled in red tape with Israeli officials and the Red Cross.
Clara Khoury rounds out the team, their faces twisting in real-time horror synced to Hind’s actual recordings.
Ben Hania overlays genuine footage at key moments, blurring lines so responders’ reenacted words mesh with archived voices.
Forensic reports cited in production note 335 bullets riddled the family car, underscoring the trap. The 89-minute runtime unfolds like a live call log, executive produced by Brad Pitt, Joaquin Phoenix, Rooney Mara, Alfonso Cuarón, and Jonathan Glazer.
Venice Buzz Ignites Firestorm
The world premiere at the Venice Film Festival drew 23 minutes of standing ovation, with audience tears flowing as the credits rolled. The jury handed the Grand Jury Prize to second-place winner Jim Jarmusch’s film, prompting outcry online that politics had sidelined the bolder Gaza tale.
President Alexander Payne defended the split, insisting both films stood equal, dismissing resignation rumors as online hype.
Golden Globe nods followed for non-English film and score, with IMDb at 8.5 and Metacritic at 84. Critics hail it as urgent cinema, blending docu-elements without gore porn.
The UAE rollout hit Cinema Akil on December 17, 2025, expanding regionally amid awards chatter. Red Sea Fest screened it as a hybrid standout, tying fiction’s tension to doc truth.
Cast shared in interviews how scripts deepened Palestinian ties, with Malhees calling it identity-affirming. Ben Hania reacted viscerally to Hind’s tape, feeling a direct plea to act. NPR spotlighted responders’ real desperation mirrored on screen.
Blurred Lines Stoke Raw Debates
Style keeps eyes on human cost, voices raw, while frames stay claustrophobic, avoiding exploitation. Some praise the restraint; others question mixing kids’ real terror with actors for effect.
The Voice of Hind Rajab (Credit: Mime Films)
The Venice fallout fueled claims of jury caution on the Israel-Palestine heat. Ben Hania’s past hybrids, like 4 Days in France, prepare her for this boundary push, making helplessness visceral.
Real events ground it: Hind’s aunt in Germany patched the first call, and responders waited on IDF green lights that never cleared. The ambulance hit later, killing paramedics Youssef Zeino and Ahmed Al-Madhoon.
The film indicts bureaucracy’s paralysis, with Omar raging at colleagues for “talking to killers.” Al Jazeera docs added context on family killings, but Ben Hania prioritizes emotional vice.
Reactions split theaters, some fleeing mid-film from the weight. Roger Ebert notes it demands sitting with violence’s echo, not spectacle. The Guardian deems it provocative brilliance amid an urgent crisis.
As releases expand, it challenges comfy distances, merging news with narrative to etch one voice into memory. Hindustan Times calls it the year’s essential watch.
