The innocence of a child in the face of the weight of a dictatorship.
Drama by Hasan Hadi starring Baneen Ahmad Nayyef, Sajad Mohamad Qasem, and Waheed Thabet Khreibat. Iraq, Qatar, USA. 1 hour 42 minutes.
In Saddam Hussein's Iraq, 9-year-old Lamia is given the daunting task of baking a cake to celebrate the president's birthday. His quest for ingredients, accompanied by his friend Saeed, turns his life upside down...
This is our favorite film from the Cannes Film Festival (Directors' Fortnight section, where it also won the Caméra d'Or for Best First Film). Hats off to Hasan Hadi who, seemingly effortlessly, through a story told from a child's perspective (reminiscent of Roberto Rossellini's Germany Year Zero or René Clément's Forbidden Games), brilliantly dissects the insidious and destructive mechanisms of Saddam Hussein's dictatorship. Any resemblance... This screening is presented by Unipop de ville en ville, preceded by a live broadcast of a lecture by Myriam Benraad, "Iraq from Saddam Hussein to the Present Day."
In Saddam Hussein's Iraq, 9-year-old Lamia is given the daunting task of baking a cake to celebrate the president's birthday. His quest for ingredients, accompanied by his friend Saeed, turns his life upside down...
This is our favorite film from the Cannes Film Festival (Directors' Fortnight section, where it also won the Caméra d'Or for Best First Film). Hats off to Hasan Hadi who, seemingly effortlessly, through a story told from a child's perspective (reminiscent of Roberto Rossellini's Germany Year Zero or René Clément's Forbidden Games), brilliantly dissects the insidious and destructive mechanisms of Saddam Hussein's dictatorship. Any resemblance... This screening is presented by Unipop de ville en ville, preceded by a live broadcast of a lecture by Myriam Benraad, "Iraq from Saddam Hussein to the Present Day."
