{"id":79464,"date":"2025-05-06T15:22:08","date_gmt":"2025-05-06T15:22:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/79464\/"},"modified":"2025-05-06T15:22:08","modified_gmt":"2025-05-06T15:22:08","slug":"the-presidents-cake-sells-to-france-and-benelux-ahead-of-cannes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/79464\/","title":{"rendered":"‘The President’s Cake’ Sells to France and Benelux Ahead of Cannes"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tSales agency Films Boutique<\/a> has closed two key territories on Iraqi writer\/director Hasan Hadi<\/a>\u2019s \u201cThe President\u2019s Cake\u201d ahead of its world premiere in Directors\u2019 Fortnight during the Cannes Film Festival<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe film has been acquired in France by Tandem and Benelux by September Film.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe President\u2019s Cake\u201d takes place in 1990s Iraq when people across the country are struggling to survive food shortages. It is at this time that Saddam Hussein requires each school in the country to prepare a cake to celebrate his birthday.<\/p>\n

\n\tDespite her efforts to avoid getting picked, 9-year-old Lamia is chosen among her classmates. The girl must now use her wits and imagination to gather ingredients for the mandatory cake or face the consequences.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe President\u2019s Cake\u201d was filmed entirely in Iraq with a cast of local non-actors, who included Baneen Ahmad Nayyef, Sajad Mohamad Qasem, Waheed Thabet Khreibat and Rahim AlHaj.<\/p>\n

\n\tHadi grew up in southern Iraq during wartime, and over the years worked in journalism, production, and as an adjunct professor at NYU\u2019s Graduate Film Program.<\/p>\n

\n\tHe is a 2022 Sundance Institute Feature Film Fellow and the recipient of the 2022 Sundance Institute\/NHK Award, SFFILM Rainin Grant, and Doha Film Institute Production Grant for \u201cThe President\u2019s Cake,\u201d his feature debut.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe film\u2019s producer is Leah Chen Baker, who is an Independent Spirit Award-nominated producer and filmmaker. She produced Jamie Dack\u2019s feature debut, \u201cPalm Trees and Power Lines,\u201d which premiered at Sundance 2022 and won the U.S. Dramatic Directing Award.<\/p>\n

\n\tExecutive producers include Academy Award-winning screenwriter Eric Roth (\u201cForrest Gump\u201d) and director Marielle Heller. The film is made in association with Missing Piece Films, Working Barn Productions, Maiden Voyage Films and Spark Features.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe director of photography is Tudor Vladimir Panduru, the DP of Palme d\u2019Or winner Cristian Mungiu on \u201cBacalaureat\u201d and \u201cRMN.\u201d The editor is Andu Radu.<\/p>\n

\n\tFilms Boutique\u2019s lineup includes Ira Sachs\u2019 \u201cPeter Hujar\u2019s Day,\u201d which premiered in Sundance, Georgi M. Unkovski\u2019s Audience Award winner from Sundance, \u201cDJ Ahmet,\u201d and \u201cTarika\u201d by Milko Lazarov, which screens in the Cannes Ecrans Junior section. There will be market screenings for the recent Berlinale competition title \u201cGirls on Wire\u201d by Vivian Qu and \u201cWhere the Wind Comes From\u201d by Amel Guellaty, which also premiered in Sundance earlier this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sales agency Films Boutique has closed two key territories on Iraqi writer\/director Hasan Hadi\u2019s \u201cThe President\u2019s Cake\u201d ahead…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":79465,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5309],"tags":[6639,2000,299,38782,36,38783],"class_list":{"0":"post-79464","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-france","8":"tag-cannes-film-festival","9":"tag-eu","10":"tag-europe","11":"tag-films-boutique","12":"tag-france","13":"tag-hasan-hadi"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114461575986470819","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79464\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}