Hasan Hadi

While people across 1990s Iraq struggle to survive the war and food shortages, Saddam Hussein 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 for the mandatory cake or face the consequences.

A woman goes on a daytime show to confront a famous music producer of sexual harassment, only to find him armed with the “perfect apology.”

A former elementary school teacher emerges badly bruised on the shore of a lake. After a lengthy trek through the hot Mexican sun, she lands at the primary school where she once worked.

Samah attempts tirelessly to escape wearing a burkini for her middle school swim meet, feeling embarrassed by its shape and cultural meaning.

An adolescent girl has trained herself to function within the walls of a dysfunctional home, but when forced to face reality she must choose between the love she has for her mother or her own well-being. Pancakes explores the effects of losing someone you love to an illness. The film depicts a child's attempt to be an adult in order to keep some semblance of a family together, broken as it may be.

A researcher in plant sciences returns home to his village in rural Lebanon to attend his father's funeral. During the three-day-long Christian Greek Orthdox memorial he discovers that a pathogen is infecting the trees across his village. A dark comedy about tradition, grief, and the environment.