Death of the President marks the important return to filmmaking of director Jerzy Kawalerowicz after an absence of nearly eight years. Kawalerowicz's films include Night Train, Mother Joan of the Angels, and The Game, produced under the auspices of the Film Unit “Kadr” which Kawalerowicz organized and for which he served as artistic director.
Based on documents and evidence of the period, Death of the President is a reconstruction of the few December days of 1922 when Polish political life was shadowed by fascism. The election by the National Assembly of Gabriel Narutowicz as the first President of the Polish Republic came as a surprise. A candidate of the left-wing faction of the peasant movement, Narutowicz stood no chance of winning. But a complicated series of political moves brought him the support of the entire popular movement, the Socialists and national minorities. At this point, right-wing groups launched an attack, which was followed by a violent tide of rioting and instigated mob action directed at the President and the deputies who had voted for him. When progressive forces rallied to the defense of the President and the Constitution, some appeasement was achieved. Seven days after the election, on the second day of the President's official duties, Narutowicz was assassinated by Eligiusz Niewiadomski, painter, critic, art theoretician and fanatic nationalist.

“...(T)o follow the ‘traces' of history not only means invoking a world of the past but also means making people of the present probe into invisible crevices of the past without falsifying it in any way. The film-makers have succeeded in both these tasks with great precision. The picture attempts to explain what happened, to reveal the mechanics of the establishment of democracy... and to probe into the minds of the fanatics.... Critics have been rather surprised by the spontaneity of Death of the President, as if the director acquired this style during his period of silence - but he was, in fact, one of its discoverers on an international scale.”