Iraqi filmmaker Hasan Hadi has been nominated for the Michael Apted Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in First-Time Theatrical Feature Film at the Directors Guild of America Awards, for his debut feature, The President’s Cake, adding to the film’s run of industry recognition.
The nominees in the first-time feature category also include Harry Lighton for Pillion; Charlie Polinger for The Plague; Alex Russell for Lurker; and Eva Victor for Sorry, Baby.
Nominees in the Directors Guild’s top category for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Theatrical Feature Film are: Paul Thomas Anderson for One Battle After Another; Ryan Coogler for Sinners; Guillermo del Toro for Frankenstein; Josh Safdie for Marty Supreme; and Chloe Zhao for Hamnet.
The President’s Cake has already won major awards on the international festival circuit. The film had its premiere in the Directors’ Fortnight section at the 2025 Festival de Cannes where it won the Camera d’Or for best first feature as well as the Directors’ Fortnight Audience Award, becoming the first Iraqi film to be awarded at the Cannes festival.
Speaking at a press conference in May, Hadi called the win “overwhelming and exciting”.
“It means more responsibility and that you have to make films at the same level,” he said. “We are an emerging industry. There's still a lot to be done, there are a lot of artists who are coming up and I'm optimistic about the future of cinema.”
Directed and written by Hadi, The President's Cake is set in Iraq during the 1990s under the rule of Saddam Hussein, and follows a young girl who must find scarce ingredients to bake a cake for the president’s birthday, a task complicated by economic hardship and authoritarian pressures.
The 78th Annual Directors Guild of America Awards will be presented on February 7 in Beverly Hills.
