A provocative fictional drama depicting the assassination of president George W Bush has been selected as the opening night presentation of the 51st Cork Film Festival on October 8th.
Death of a President is structured in the form of a documentary, beginning on October 19th, 2007, when Mr Bush arrives in Chicago where the streets are lined with angry anti-war protesters.
Having addressed a business forum at a hotel, Mr Bush is leaving the building when he is fatally shot. What follows speculates on the consequences of the assassination, including a rush to judgment when a Syrian immigrant becomes the prime suspect. Tensions rise in the Middle East and President Cheney introduces draconian amendments to the Patriot Act.
"We are delighted to have secured the European premiere of Death Of A President," festival director Mick Hannigan said in a statement yesterday.
"This is urgent, important cinema, raising vital questions about politics and the mass media, about liberty and democracy. It confirms the importance of cinema as a means of making sense of the world. For us, it is the perfect opening film."
The film's Irish producer, Ed Guiney of Dublin-based Element Films, said: "Mick and his team at the Cork Film Festival have been huge supporters of our films and we have had both The Magdalene Sisters and Disco Pigs as opening night films there in the past."
Among the many outspoken political films shown at the Toronto International Film Festival earlier this month, Death of a President was the most controversial. There was such demand for admission to the press screening that an additional screening had to be added.
The jury, representing international critics body Fipresci, voted it as the best film shown at the Toronto festival this year.
Prior to the Toronto screening, a White House spokesman said that "the film does not dignify a response". Made by English director Gabriel Range, Death of a President blends newsreel footage - raising questions in the process about media manipulation - and interviews with fictional White House aides and security agents.