The White King is a 2016 British science fiction-drama film written and directed by Alex Helfrecht and Jörg Tittel.

It is an adaptation of the novel of the same name written by György Dragomán and follows Djata (Lorenzo Allchurch) growing up in a dictatorship, without access to the rest of the world, while dealing with persecution against him and his parents by the government.

The film follows Djata (Lorenzo Allchurch), a 12-year-old boy growing up in a dystopian territory called Homeland, under a dictatorship and without access to the rest of the world.

His father, Peter (Ross Partridge), tells him of the true nature of Homeland as well as of a treasure guarded by a man named Pickaxe (Ólafur Darri Ólafsson).

[3] Its production started in June 2015 as principal photography began for the film, where it used settings such as a former Soviet air force base.

While the novel takes place in Romania under the dictatorial rule of Nicolae Ceaușescu (where author György Dragomán grew up) with added elements of magic realism, the film is set in a nondescript fictional dystopia.

However, the directors opted to include an animated sequence at the beginning that "tells the story through the language of propaganda, the symbols that will be seen through the film."

For this, they sought out the animation studio Spov, which had worked on content in the Call of Duty and Titanfall video game series.

[6] The White King has received generally positive reception; it holds an average rating on Rotten Tomatoes of 71%, based on 21 reviews.

[8] Charles Gant of Screen Daily compared the film to the novel 1984, similarly giving Allchurch praise for his performance.

Gant felt that while it succeeds at presenting the world in the tone that it wants, it suffers somewhat from a relatively weak narrative due to the novel being a "loose collection of stories.

[9] Writer Emma Simmonds called it a "moderately successful dystopian adventure," similarly comparing it to 1984 but also The Hunger Games and The Goonies.

[10] MaryAnn Johanson of Flick Filosopher, however, commented: "This sad mess of a vaguely sci-fi coming-of-age tale seemingly could not be more plugged into current fears, and yet it feels utterly irrelevant.