Ila Janab Al Sayyda Raisat Alwezara’ Benazir Boto

In 1988, Benazir Bhutto was elected head of the Pakistan People’s Party and became prime minister of Pakistan. A Harvard and Oxford graduate, this lovely young woman is the daughter of the former prime minister, Ali Bhutto, who was removed from office and executed by General Zia, the initiator of islamisation. In 1989, the filmmaker visited Pakistan to try and understand the real woman, but his repeated attempts to obtain an interview with her were in vain. Is Benazir Bhutto nothing more than a mediatised seductive figure? A smooth image of reassuring goodwill towards Western interests? Her absence becomes the subject matter of the film. This invisible character is described through the mise en scène of the power circles and her critics or rivals. Far from the palace, the filmmaker observes and listens to the lowly, those who are waiting for Benazir to change their life. In 1993, Benazir Bhutto returned to power after being removed by the army’s coup d’Etat a few months after the film shoot. She finally conceded the long-awaited interview, which stands as a postscript to the subtle portrait of both a political figure and a country’s complexity.