Stay at the festival long enough and you will eventually notice some of the shared themes and connective tissue between the movies. Even so, the accidental connection between Hasan Hadi's sympathetic director's debut "The President's Cake" and Fatih Akin's quiet epic "Amrum" is shocking, as both films bring their young protagonists to the grand corporations to gather basic supplies such as flour, sugar, sugar, eggs, etc. in order to be born in a horror era of dictators.

Again, despite the similarity of this plot, perhaps its appearance may not be surprising, as the current world of war-hardened children are once again hurt. Filmmakers trying to browse our current reality will dig into their past and memories. Hardy did this with “the president’s cake”, following his protagonist, Ramia (Baneen Ahmed Nayyef, underperformed).

As Hardy remembers, this is Iraq in the 1990s. The film is set in the Mesopotamian swamp of his childhood, where elementary school students glided on the swamps of canoe and took classes when Iraqis across the country starved to death due to U.S. sanctions. Still, Saddam Hussein, like Marie Antoinette, continues to threaten consequences if the Iraqis did not celebrate his April 28th birthday with a luxurious cake, as if the supply was easily available. Each school has created a group of students to clean, provide fruit trays, decorate and finally bake matte desserts.

In her small town and humble school, often promised loyalty to Saddam's collective ode, the last holiness (expensive) responsibility falls on the brave Lamia, who lives with her sacrificial grandmother Bibi (Waheed Thabet Khreibat), who has not gone anywhere without her beloved Rooster Hindi. While the sight of lamia carrying a proud cock stands out directly from children’s stories, nothing in her life has storybook quality. Even if she strives to keep up with the scholar, her living conditions do not necessarily develop learning habits. Sadly, Lamia's sick grandmother could no longer take care of her and planned to hand over her way to a local couple in a better way.

What if she didn't escape her ultimate fate, and also collected ingredients to bake Saddam's cake? Her yelling teacher also ordered an extra cream stuffing. Her best friend and neighbor Sajad Mohamad Qasem joins Lamia’s journey, her best friend and neighbor Saeed (Sajad Mohamad Qasem), who insist on giving some fruit for it. The two teams hitchhike, hitchhike to nearby cities and provide more supplies. First, they find themselves sitting in a truck of a seemingly useful postman (Rahim Alhaj), who later returns. (It was really funny when Lamia asked, “Are you Allah?” once she realized the scope of her mailings across the country.) Later, they managed to source some eggs and stayed away from the bakery close call as Lamia tried to steal the flour and was tricked by a group of adults who used her kindness. In one of the most heartbreaking events, Lamia sells his family heirloom watch in exchange for fake money.

Although “President’s Cake” is mostly like an old fairy tale, with both humor and drama that are excellent in humor and drama, Hardy still has underestimated the ills of patriarchal society. Thus, the children witnessed a male grocer taking advantage of hunger and very pregnant women, trying to attract her to the back room with a case of high-end food. (When the young woman's plea "Don't you see my condition?" protested, the slimy man simply hinted that it was "no risk" to her pregnancy.

Hadi's films with the likes of Chris Columbus and Marielle Heller among its executive producers, hold the Champions of the Commercial Athens Building and are filled with the details of the Watch Period in its existing production designs - organized road chaos, dust in the air, all the signs related to Saddam, and more. When Lamia and Saeed are briefly and predictably against each other, the “President’s Cake” especially raises the heartstrings, which are opposed to each other through some wonderful writing conversations and quarrels of small talk. It is during these emotionally intimate moments that Hardy and his photographer Vladimir Panduru, in particular, trigger expressive lighting to expand the dignity of the children, as well as thoughtful close-ups of the wonderful young actors of the film - Saeed's "Strong Beyond-beyond-beyond-his-his Yis-His sirs sevage," and Lamia's dramatic eyes, usually on the eyes.

The movie's "President's Cake" punches the movie's relatively dull ending. Kids may get the cake and regain relatively safe in the conclusion. But Lamia and Saeed’s future didn’t bring any colorful icing on the cake to the top.