Hasan Hadi’s "The President’s Cake" opens with the most beautiful scenery of a village on the water at dusk. A grandmother and granddaughter are in a paddle boat, the water is blue-black, the sky blue-red and the image has a grainy quality that reminds me of analogue photographs of my childhood. The grandmother is telling the story of "Gilgamesh" to the granddaughter, reminding the viewer that these are waters where the first stories were told and Iraqis will continue to pass on this tradition of storytelling. The film has already won the Best Film Award at the Bosphorus Film Festival and is on its way to acquire a few more prizes.
Despite the fact that it is a film set in wartime the beauty of the natural landscape is mesmerizing and it dawns on me that I am watching a film about the Iraq War, made by Iraqis, about Iraqis, for the first time.
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