“An allegorical lesson about dictatorships and the cycle of violence they breed” – Variety
An ousted dictator goes on the run with his grandson after a bloody coup d’état in The President. Dressing as shepherds and street performers, the toppled strongman and the boy are fugitives in the Caucasus, fleeing through lands the President once ruled with an iron fist, now plunged into chaos by murderous revolutionaries.
Raised as a prince, the five-year-old will witness first-hand the devastation the regime wrought on the lives of the common people, and the deposed President will see another side of the people he governed. In self-exile from Iran since the rise of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, director and human rights activist Mohsen Makhmalbaf has crafted a cautionary tale of the spiralling violence bred by tyrannical dictatorships.
