El Señor Presidente has been adapted into three Spanish-language films and one play. The first of the films, filmed in black and white, was made in 1970, by Argentine director Marcos Madanes.[88] It was originally shown at the 1970 Venice Film Festival. The cast included Pedro Buchardo as the President, Luis Brandoni as Miguel and Alejandra Da Passano as Camila.[89] As in Asturias's novel, the action is instigated when the village idiot kills a jeering army colonel, and in response, the president decides to blame the murder on a political adversary, but from that point on the film diverges from the novel. In the film, an operative is sent to spread rumors about the accused but instead he falls in love with the accused man's daughter. Once this happens, the operative defies his loyalty to the president and helps the daughter and her father incite a revolution with what he knows about the corrupt leader.[90] Asturias himself complained about the film: he "sent a telegram to the Venice Film Festival denying permission to show the feature, but the letter arrived a day late. The unfortunate audience then had to endure this malodorous melodrama."[90]
El Señor Presidente was adapted for the stage by playwright Hugo Carrillo, and first performed in a production of the Compañía de Arte Dramático de la Universidad Popular directed by Rubén Morales at the twelfth Festival of Guatemalan Theatre in 1974.[91] It was a great popular success, with over 200 performances[92] during its ten-month run, much longer than the two months of weekend performances that were standard for the festival,[91] and the run broke Central American box office records.[91] The production later toured Central America and other groups have also performed it, so that over 50,000 people[91] have seen the play in over eight other countries besides Guatemala.[92] Carrillo was notably concerned about the staging of the play by others; he grew angry at a Salvadoran production that changed a few scenes, and casting differences with Joseph Papp led to the cancellation of the play at the 1987 New York Latin American Festival[91] (this canceled production was the origin of the English translation of the play, written by Margarita Kénefic, a student of Carrillo[91]).
The play was also critically acclaimed, receiving many awards[91] and has been written of as the zenith of a "Golden Age" of Guatemalan theatre.[91] The play engaged the politics of the time (the Institutional Democratic Party was then in power), and Carrillo felt it necessary at first to attribute the script to the pseudonym "Franz Metz", and had photos taken of someone portraying "Metz" with the director;[92] on opening night, secret police came inquiring after the address of Asturias (who had died earlier that year),[92] and the government started paying attention to the previews of plays in the next year.[91]
The second film adaptation, in 1983, was directed by Manuel Octavio Gómez, and was one of the last films made by this prolific Cuban film director. It starred French actor Michel Auclair as "El Presidente".[93]
The most recent film adaptation, directed by Venezuelan Rómulo Guardia Granier and produced by RCTV (Radio Caracas Televisión Internacional), was released in November 2007[94] and is the first film produced by RCTV in more than twenty years.[95] This version paints the picture of a hopeless love story—one that is unable to succeed under the terrorizing and corrupt dictatorship.[96] It therefore plays up what is only hinted at in the novel itself, the possibility that the President is driven at least in part by sexual desire.
Perhaps the most striking aspect of this film version is the way in which it was immediately taken as a commentary on the present government of Venezuela. Director Granier divulged in an interview, "We had to film in secret in order to avoid being shut down."[95] Antonio Blanco, who also worked on this adaptation, said that: "We plan to market the film as a Guatemalan story to avoid any problems with authorities." RCTV lost its terrestrial broadcasting rights in mid-2007 when the government of Hugo Chávez (who was democratically elected, but accused by opponents of harboring dictatorial tendencies) did not renew the network's license.[95]
