The Boy Who Was a King

Following the sudden death of his father in 1943, six-year-old Tsar Simeon II had a brief reign in Bulgaria. Shortly after World War II, the communists took over and he and his family went into exile. Half a century later, following the fall of communism, he returned to his fatherland, where in 2001 he was elected Prime Minister. Director Andrey Paounov (who won the IDFA Silver Wolf Award in 2004 for allows Simeon's amazing story to unfold at a relaxed pace and with flashes of humor. The former tsar and prime minister is only shown in archive material: home movies shot in the old palace and more recent television interviews. New portraits by admirers and opponents paint an allegorical picture of Simeon II. At one point, for example, a life-size chocolate model of him is served up in a restaurant. We also meet a clairvoyant with a glass ball; a man plagued by "socialist nightmares" who sleeps with sensors on his head to record his nocturnal brain activity; a seamstress who made a suit with 77 pockets for Simeon; a group of former communists fighting for the restoration of communism; and someone who - to his regret - had a portrait of Simeon tattooed on his back, between the names of his past girlfriends: "All exes."