Iraq’s first ever director in Cannes wins best feature debut

Hasan Hadi, the first filmmaker from Iraq to be selected for the prestigious Cannes Festival, on Saturday won a top prize for his childhood adventure under economic sanctions in “The President’s Cake”.

His first feature-length film follows nine-year-old Lamia after her school teacher picks her to bake the class a cake for President Saddam Hussein’s birthday or risk being denounced for disloyalty.

It is the early 1990s, the country is under crippling UN sanctions, and she and her grandmother…