About

Set in early 1990s Iraq, when 9-year old Lamia’s name is picked out in the class draw, she is faced with the ‘honour’ – and the exceptionally daunting challenge – of baking a cake for her school’s mandatory celebration of Saddam Hussein’s birthday. Her ailing grandmother cannot afford the ingredients and so, together with Lamia’s young friend and her pet rooster, they set off for the city to try and somehow source the ingredients.

Part fairy tale and part moral fable, the film undergoes several tonal shifts, skilfully navigating between the comic, the charming and the tragic, providing a child’s eye view of a brutal dictatorship and the effect that the crippling UN sanctions has on its people.