Netflix to premiere Cannes winner The President’s Cake in the U.S.

At the center of The President’s Cake is 9-year-old Lamia (newcomer Baneen Ahmad Nayyef), a schoolgirl in rural Iraq during the Gulf War who’s picked to bake a birthday cake for Saddam Hussein — an “honor” no family can safely refuse. Over an intense, two-day scramble in a resource-starved police state, a simple assignment turns into a life-or-death errand for ingredients, permission slips, and survival.

Streams on Netflix US September 3, 2026.

American viewers first met the film in theaters via Sony Pictures Classics, which ran an awards-qualifying engagement in New York and Los Angeles in December 2025 before rolling it out nationwide on February 6, 2026. Now the Cannes-laurelled indie is headed to homes as part of Netflix’s September lineup in the U.S., per Netflix’s listings reported by What’s on Netflix.

From Cannes to the Oscars

The film world-premiered at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival and won the Caméra d’Or, the festival’s prize for best first feature. It went on to be selected as Iraq’s official submission for the 98th Academy Awards and made the December shortlist.

Who made it

Hasan Hadi makes his feature directorial debut and co-wrote the screenplay with Oscar- winning writer Eric Roth. Executive producers include Marielle Heller and Chris Columbus. The production received support from the Doha Film Institute and SFFILM and developed through Sundance Institute Labs.

Shot entirely on location in Iraq, the production leans on mostly untrained local actors for texture and immediacy. Alongside Nayyef, the ensemble includes:

• Sajad Mohamad Qasem
• Waheed Thabet Khreibat
• Rahim AlHaj
• Maytham Mreidi
• Tayseer Ibrahim Radi

Presented in Arabic with an unblinking look at life under a dictatorship, the movie pairs a child’s-eye perspective with stark historical detail. It begins streaming in the U.S. on Netflix on September 3, 2026.