About the film

At the age of six, Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha received the first phone call of his life, informing him of his father’s sudden death and his birthright to become Tsar of Bulgaria. Only three years later, the nine-year-old king was overthrown by communist dissenters and he and his family were exiled from the country. Fifty years passed before the communist regime collapsed and Simeon was allowed to return home. Crowds cheered, “We want our King!”, even though the title no longer existed. Simeon created a new political party and won a landslide majority to become the Prime Minister of Bulgaria in 2001. But it was a difficult period of transition for a country with eighty per cent unemployment. In four years, Simeon would find himself in a sort of exile again: this time from the favour of the nation that had celebrated his return. To tell this tumultuous history, Paounov taps into a rich supply of archive footage, including memorable images of the boy king inspecting his troops. He’s also drawn to eccentric eyewitnesses and bystanders: the taxidermists who stuffed the king’s coyote, the chocolatiers who painstakingly sculpt his likeness in chocolate, the hopeful supporters who tattoo his face on their bodies, and the many constituents who create songs and puppet shows in the country’s honour.

Wybrane nagrody i festiwale /Selected festivals and awards: 2011 - MFF Toronto/Toronto IFF, 2011 – IDFA/International Documentary Festival Amsterdam