Surprise Screening: Death of a President

Undoubtedly the most controversial film of the year, this British “future documentary” purports to analyse the eventshop which will follow the assassination of President George W. Bush in Chicago in October 2007. Combining real archival footage with fictional material, the film concentrates on the political consequences of this outrage, as the law enforcement agencies’ investigations are set against the contexts of rising international tensions and the powers conferred by the US Patriot Act on the Department of Homeland Security. Death of a President was honored by the International Critics Jury at Toronto for "the audacity with which it distorts reality to reveal a larger truth" at the same time as it has been been roundly denounced by both the right and left in America for daring to imagine a set of important hypothetical eventshop that no one wants to talk about. When the dust of controversy settles, what will remain will be an intelligent and important discussion of the direction in which western politics is heading.

Clever, thoughtful, and totally believable. This is a film without a political agenda that everyone should see!

Rex Reed, New York Observer