President

A cynical political power play is the focus of Danish documentarist Camilla Nielsson’s new film. She had fly-on-the-wall access as the Zimbabwean opposition leader Nelson Chamisa ran for office in the first free elections in Zimbabwe for decades.

After the removal of dictator Robert Mugabe from the presidential offices in 2017, people took to the streets in celebration of the potential of democracy and free elections. Among them was the young opposition representative Chamisa from the political party MDC Alliance; he gathered his team and went to work on his own campaign. In spite of the crusade against corruption and poverty that was backed by the people, it would soon prove more difficult to fight against the established power structures than he could imagine.

Camilla Nielsson has turned her camera lens on Zimbabwe once before, in the documentary Democrats (2015). With her vast network in the country and in-depth knowledge of the subject matter, she presents a remarkable study of a universal political power play. She masterfully portrays the intensity of the political processes, and not least the fear and uncertainty that follows when those who wield power are willing to play dirty to keep it.

Lasse Skagen

Director

Camilla Nielsson (b. 1977) is an award winning independent film maker based in Copenhagen. Her streches far and wide both in geography an themes: from the triology on childrens rights with Good Morning Afghanistan (2003), Durga (2004) and The Children of Darfur (2006), to bureaucracy and traffic management in the comedy Mumbai Disconnected ( 2009). Her first documentary Democrats (2014), collected more than 25 iinternational awards and nominations. Her newest documentary President (2021) premiered at Sundance Film Festival, where it won the World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award for Vérité Filmmaking.