The President's Cake
Monday April 20, 2:00 p.m.
Monday April 20, 2:00 p.m.
The President's Cake
105 min
Arabic with English Subtitles
Season Sponsor: Rastins Pharmacy
Film Date Sponsor: Retired Teachers of Ontario-Hamilton Wentworth Branch
Proceeds to the Demazenod Door Outreach
Tickets: https://www.memorialarts.ca/films/aff-april-aft
Winner of Cannes Directors' Fortnight Audience Award and the Golden Camera Award
11 Award wins out of 23 nominations.
While people across 1990s Iraq struggle to survive the war and food shortages, the President requires each school in the country to prepare a cake to celebrate his birthday. Despite her efforts to avoid getting picked, 9-year-old Lamia is chosen among her classmates. The young girl must now use her wits and imagination to gather ingredients and prepare the mandatory cake.
A crowd-pleaser in the best sense, it overflows with empathy for its beleaguered people.
Peter Rainer/Christian Science Monitor.
This detail-rich and tremendously moving moral fable uncovers harsh realities in Iraqi society without departing from the earnest perspective of its knee-high protagonist, and without diminishing the dignity or value of her hopes and dreams. Isaac Feldberg/RogerEbert.com
It’s difficult to think of another debut that combines such crowd-pleasing sensibilities, political resonance, and cinematic sweep. Rory O'Connor/The Film Stage
Hadi tells an engaging story, brings complex and surprising characters to life, lends a locale an aesthetic iconography, and renders personal identity inextricable from the forces of history that shaped or deformed it. Richard Brody/The New Yorker
H Is For Hawk
Monday March 30, 2:00 p.m.
Monday April 20, 7:15 p.m.
H IS For Hawk
128 min
Season Sponsor: Rastins Pharmacy
Film Date Sponsor: Retired Teachers of Ontario-Hamilton Wentworth Branch
Proceeds to the Demazenod Door Outreach
Buy tickets at https://www.memorialarts.ca/films/aff-april-eve
H is for Hawk follows Helen (Claire Foy), who, after a family tragedy loses herself in the memories of her time birding and exploring the natural world with her father (Brendan Gleeson) and turns the ancient art of falconry—rooted in European tradition—training a wild goshawk named Mabel to navigate her profound sadness. But as she teaches Mabel to hunt and fly free, Helen discovers how deeply she has neglected her own emotions and life.
Foy is exceptional throughout in a project that frequently requires her to share the frame with a beady-eyed, sharp-clawed killer and, crucially, to convey a combination of awestruck admiration and stultifying terror. Kevin Maher/The Times(UK)
Finding ways to cope with any significant tragedy is hardly new, but in the hands of Foy and Lowthrope, it is. Brian Farvour/The Playlist
Foy is terrific in a film which balances bruising candour about mental health issues against arresting wildlife photography and a fervent appreciation of the natural world. Wendy Ide/Screen Daily
Other Films Dates: 2025 Season
OTHER FILM DATES: Screenings 2:00 pm and 7:15
January 26 Sentimental Value, 2:00 p.m.
January 26 It Was Just An Accident, 7:15 p.m.
February 23 DJ Ahmet, 2:00 p.m.
February 23 Marty Supreme 7:15 p.m.
March 30 The Choral 2:00 p.m.
March 30 The Secret Agent 7:15 p.m.
April 20 The President's Cake 2:00 p.m.
April 20 HIs For Hawk 7:15 p.m.
May 11
May 25
June 8
September 14
October 5
October 27 (Note changed to Tuesday)
November 23 (Note changed)
December 14 (Note changed)
