Iraqi filmmaker Hasan Hadi has won the Directors’ Fortnight People’s Choice Award at the Cannes Film Festival for his poignant, darkly comic debut feature The President’s Cake.
The €7,500 ($8,400) cash prize is the only audience-voted award across the official selection and parallel sections in Cannes and marks a major breakthrough for the New York-based Hadi. The film is being sold internationally by Films Boutique, with UTA handling North American rights.
Based on Hadi’s own childhood in 1990s Iraq, the film follows nine-year-old Lamia, who is tasked with baking a cake to honor Saddam Hussein’s birthday — a seemingly simple assignment with life-or-death stakes. Amid crippling sanctions, food shortages and a climate of fear, Lamia’s attempt to gather ingredients becomes a journey of quiet rebellion and resourcefulness.
Produced by Leah Chen Baker under the banner of TPC Film LLC, the film has resonated with critics and audiences alike. In her The Hollywood Reporter review, Sheri Linden praised it as “a tragicomic gem,” writing: “Hadi’s film is an exceptional screen debut, as perceptive as it is kinetic and, with one eye on the bombers overhead, brimming with life.”
The Directors’ Fortnight People’s Choice Award was launched in 2023 in partnership with the Chantal Akerman Foundation, honoring the late Belgian auteur whose work frequently premiered in the section — including her feminist masterwork Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles. The award was created to spotlight bold, audience-connected filmmaking in the spirit of Akerman’s legacy. The debut 2024 honor went to Canadian feature Universal Language from director Matthew Rankin.
Elsewhere in the Directors’ Fortnight, Belgian filmmaker Valéry Carnoy’s Wild Foxes (La Danse des Renards) dominated the sidebar’s collateral awards, taking home both the Europa Cinemas Label for Best European Film and the SACD Coup de Cœur Prize for best French-language feature. The film follows a gifted young boxer at a prestigious sports boarding school who is forced to reevaluate his life after a devastating injury. THR reviewer Jordan Mintzer called the film “a gripping and distinctive sports flick.”
Co-produced by Hélicotronc (Belgium) and Les Films du Poisson (France), Wild Foxes is being sold internationally by The Party Film Sales. The Europa Cinemas win means the film will receive extended distribution support across Europe, with additional promotion and incentives for exhibitors.
