a Black man watches another Black man speak on a TValr

Le président

Introduction by Jean-Pierre Bekolo & Lilia Kilburn
Directed by Jean-Pierre Bekolo.
With Massam A. Biroko, Gérard Essomba, Max Essouma.
Cameroon/Germany, 2013, DCP, color, 63 min.
French with English subtitles.
DCP source: Weltfilm

How do you know when it's time to leave? This is one of the questions raised by Jean-Pierre Bekolo's forth feature film, shot in Cameroon, a country ruled for over forty years by Paul Biya. In this film Bekolo also analyzes the congruent relationship between the media and political power in order to question, in the form of a satirical film, the meaning of democratic political representation in the context of contemporary Cameroon. (For instance, pay attention to the TV show footage included in wider shots.) With his signature mixing of codes and genres, Bekolo portrays here a fictitious president with dark glasses, imbued with power. Unsurprisingly, the film was censored by the Cameroonian authorities when it was released in 2013. Yet being president is not a divine gift, and "being the son of a president not enough to become one," as the rapper, political activist and exile Valsero, who appears in the film, reminds us.

Part of film series

Read more

Jean-Pierre Bekolo, 2024 McMillan-Stewart Fellow

Current and upcoming film series

Read more

Fragments of a Faith Forgotten: The Art of Harry Smith

Read more

The Yugoslav Junction: Film and Internationalism in the SFRY, 1957 – 1988

Read more

From the Jenni Olson Queer Film Collection

Read more
a double-exposed image that includes a 16th century Russian man being fed grapes by another amid decadent decor

Wings of a Serf

Read more
a close-up of a Bissau-Guinean woman wearing a scarf on her head and looking directly at the camera with a slight smile

Le Dépays + Sans soleil

Read more
Peter Sellers wearing a large hat with "ME" embroidered on it, and gripping a Pilgrim-like collar

Carol for Another Christmas

Read more

Satyajit Ray’s Apu Trilogy