On the President's Orders

“The searing story of President Duterte’s bloody campaign against drug dealers and addicts in the Philippines, told with unprecedented and intimate access to both sides of the war.” – We Are Moving Stories

Newly-elected Philippines’ President Rodrigo Duterte declared an open war on drugs in 2016. Bolstered by his brutal rhetoric, it quickly mutated into a sickening proxy class war. Over 3000 were killed in the first year in state-sanctioned bloody murders of impoverished dealers and users.

In this explosive cinematic investigation, directors James Jones and Olivier Sarbil get alarmingly close to the battle for the streets and soul of the Philippines. Their cameras stand before both sides — the victimised slum communities and the police squads blithely executing their countrymen from a perverse moral high ground. The staggering visions of violence, shot with a kinetic slickness and immediacy, are so electrifying that viewers will have to remind themselves: this is happening now, this is real.

“Shot with the stark precision and chiaroscuro tones of a Michael Mann film, James Jones and Olivier Sarbil’s On The President’s Orders would be one of the most harrowing escapist thrillers of the year if it weren’t for the sombre realisation that the horror captured is entirely, apocalyptically real.” – POV Magazine