Hasan Hadi's debut feature film is a neorealist look at how life under Saddam Hussein and sanctions in 1990s Iraq destroyed children's innocence. Iraqi film draws on Saddam-era childhood in tale of ...

Filmmaker Hasan Hadi had to bring flowers to school to celebrate Saddam Hussein’s birthday. That memory loosely informs his beautiful debut feature, The President’s Cake.

When Iraqi helmer-writer Hasan Hadi nabbed the Golden Camera for best first feature at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival with "The President's Cake," Iranian director Jafar Panahi, winner of the main ...

For Iraqis who lived through the 1990s, dictator Saddam Hussein's birthday on April 28 was a disorientating day of celebration and propaganda. Parties were staged across the sanctions-hit country to ...

As a child growing up in 1990s Iraq, Hasan Hadi feared one particular day each year: when teachers would pick children who had to prepare gifts for Saddam Hussein's birthday, a compulsory national ...