The Return of a President

In 2009, Madagascar’s president Marc Ravalomanana was deposed from power in a coup which replaced him with a young radio DJ and his private army, and which sent the population into abject poverty. From his exile in South Africa, Ravalomanana is now determined to regain power by peaceful means. But the road back to his native country and to democracy is a minefield of political intrigue and international economic interests. A hard path, which the Danish filmmaker Lotte Mik-Meyer has documented over the course of five years, with unique access to the diplomatic power play – and to Ravalomanana himself. For more than political ideals are at stake. The former colonial power France is just one of the countries that has socio-economic interests in the African island nation, and which secretly but actively supports the new regime. A film about the fragility of democracy and about a determined man’s mission to defend it.