A work in constant progress (and occasional regress).
Release Date:
December 26, 2025
Original Title:
The President's Cake
Alternate Titles:
Kingdom of Reeds
Mamlaket al-Qasab
مملكة القصب
Genres:
Drama | History
Production Companies:
Maiden Voyage Pictures
Missing Piece Films
Spark Features
TPC Film
Working Barn Productions
Production Countries:
United States of America
Ratings / Certifications:
N/A
Runtime: 102
It’s “draw day” across Iraq, when schools select students for the honour of bringing items to their mandatory local celebrations of President Saddam Hussein’s birthday. Nine-year-old Lamia lives in the historic marshes with her spirited grandmother, Bibi. Before school, Bibi teaches Lamia clever tricks to avoid being chosen for the president’s cake. However, when Musa, the authoritative teacher, calls Lamia’s name for the most challenging task—the birthday cake—she has no choice but to accept. Refusing could mean imprisonment or even death.
Boom Operator:
José Carlos Valencia
Co-Producer:
Yanal Kassay
Director:
Hasan Hadi
Director of Photography:
Tudor Vladimir Panduru
Editor:
Andu Radu
Executive Producer:
Eric Roth
Marielle Heller
Robina Riccitiello
Josh Peters
Eleanor Columbus
Chris Columbus
Chris Stolte
Heidi Stolte
Peter Richards
Donna Gruneich
Kevin Gruneich
Julia Woolley Chatwin
Naia Cucukov
Jonathan Gardner
Veronica C. Baker
Kareem Mortimer
Huda Abbood Al-Radhi
Ali Hadi Al-Musawi
Producer:
Leah Chen Baker
Production Design:
Anamaria Tecu
Sound Designer:
Tamás Zányi
Sound Mixer:
Jonathan Ayala Colon
Writer:
Hasan Hadi
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While much of the above data are retrieved directly from outside APIs and other such sources, data from American Film Institute (AFI) and British Film Institute (BFI) were manually entered the old fashioned way into a MySQL database. Re BFI I took the following liberties:
Regarding profile removals and data corrections:
Filtering is applied here to film projects flagged as "adult" by TheMovieDB. Pending "popular demand" I am contemplating a login and profile system with preferences (such as whether to allow adult images to appear) and permissions (such as data entry).
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Whether or not he still clings to an award which he won in 1986 as a film critic for his college's newspaper, Jeffrey Hartmann is not responsible for the texts of overviews and biographies supplied by external data sources.