45th IFFI -The President’ directed by Mohsin Makhmalbaf is the opening film

The 45th edition of the International Film Festival of India (IFFI), organized by Ministry of Information and Broadcasting ,Govt of India is all set to open on November 20 with the screening of the Iranian film ‘The President’ directed by Mohsin Makhmalbaf. The story concerns an ageing dictator in an unnamed country, known only as the President, played by Georgian actor Misha Gomiashvilli. “When his exhausted regime’s sadism, cynicism and brutality become too much to bear, there is a coup. His grotesquely spoilt wife and daughters flee the country but the President is left behind with his adored grandson (Dachi Orvelashvilli), whose parents have been killed in the revolution. The President has always had a mawkish fondness for this boy - a projection of his own infantilised status and pampered privilege. They steal ragged clothes and a guitar and the old man and child have to disguise themselves as a travelling street musician and his dancing monkey-boy, and live among the people they oppressed; the bounty on their heads rises inexorably and all the time they fear discovery and violent death at the hands of a newly disloyal military which the President (clearly a former army officer) indoctrinated in savagery” .The film has already been presented at the Venice Film Festival.