‘The Island President’ Male’ Premiere Next Week

The hit documentary about the Maldives, The Island President, will hold its grand Maldives premiere in Male’ next Wednesday, sources close to the filmmakers told Miadhu Daily.

The 101 minute film, which has attracted rave reviews in the United States and won the People’s Choice Award for Best Documentary at the Toronto International Film Festival, is due to come to the Maldives for a series of special screenings next week.

The film is currently making its way to film festivals across the world, ahead of its big release in American cinemas early next year. In September, ‘TIP’ graced the exclusive Telluride Film Festival in the United States before moving to Toronto for its official world premiere. Last week, the film was shown to a packed theatre of 800 people at a documentary film festival in New York and it will be aired at Amsterdam Film Festival this week before coming to the Maldives. After Maldives, the film will travel to Goa, to be screened at the International Film Festival of India.

The film has a strong environmental theme. According to the film makers – the Oscar and Emmy winning company, Actual Films, based in California – TIP is a story about the Maldives’ battle against global warming. It focuses on President Nasheed’s attempts to persuade other countries the cut carbon pollution that is causing sea levels to rise.

The film also highlights the work of former President Maumoon Gayoom, who also championed the environmental cause.

“The film culminates in the President’s trip to the Copenhagen Climate Summit in 2009 where the film provides a rare and unprecedented glimpse at Nasheed’s electrifying and passionate behind the scenes exchanges with the heads of state attending this top-level global assembly. A film about one man’s mission to save his nation and perhaps the planet, The Island President is a riveting, uplifting story that is impossible to take your eye off of,” Actual Films said in a recent email.

The film was paid for by American philanthropic foundations, including the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Ford Foundation, John D. and The Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, The Atlantic Philanthropies and the Sundance Institute Documentary Fund.

Filmmakers Jon Shenk, Richard Berge and Lincoln Else are due to travel to the Maldives next week for the special screenings. Sources told Miadhu the film will be shown in Male’ but there may be an additional screening “in the south of the Maldives” if logistics can be arranged in time.