Beautifully told through excerpts from some of his many films, archival interviews with many of his friends, family and fellow actors, this massive work is a personal essay about the United States, viewed through the life and work of a movie actor. Henry Fonda and the roles he played merge into a dazzling and conflicted figure. A very private man who thought he had “no good answers to anything” becomes the unlikely motor of a parallel history. His voice, recorded during his last interview in 1981, and his onscreen avatars guide us through America’s past and present – on a road trip from the village of Fonda, NY, across the Midwest to the Pacific; from 1651 to the 1980s and the presidency of another movie actor. It takes many places and times and characters to imagine an invisible republic – the United States of Fonda.

Fonda becomes the link between an old and a new America, the thoughtful face of the alleged transition from the law of the jungle to civilisation as well as a critic of an American self-image that only serves itself. Paradoxically, it’s the magic of cinema invoked in the film that contributes to this (self-)disenchantment of America via its own specific techniques and the help of one of its greatest magicians. And in doing so creates a wonderfully complex cinematic memorial to both the USA and storyteller and actor Fonda – the president that never was.

Official Selection: Berlin Film Festival

Official Selection: Toronto Film Festival