Iraq’s first filmmaker in Cannes says sanctions no piece of cake

Hasan Hadi, the first filmmaker from Iraq to be selected for the prestigious Cannes Festival, said economic embargoes like those imposed in his childhood under Saddam Hussein did not work.

“Sanctions empower dictators,” he told AFP, as they concentrate scant resources in their hands and only make them “more brutal”.

“In the history of the world, there was no one time when they (imposed) sanctions and the president couldn’t eat.”

Hadi’s first feature film, “The President’s Cake”, has received…