Alexander is the eldest of several children living in a closed-off compound on the outskirts of a town. Within its walls Alexander has been raised by a loner patriarch called Gregori, his mother Susanna and a group of women – mothers to the other children and all part of his extended family.

Gregori, a Faginesque figure with cult leader charisma, chillingly played by Vincent Cassel, is idolised in this idyll, a seemingly ideal oasis in a world rent by war. He has a veritable harem and the children are encouraged in physical fitness and karaoke culture.

But instead of Post-apocalyptic pickpockets the children are schooled in assassination by Grigori, who believes that he is protecting his brood from the greater evils of the outside world.

The targets for termination seem to be random and arbitrary, the audience doesn’t know whether they are contract killings or revenge murders.

The screenplay is by Ariel Kleiman and Sarah Cyngler, Kleiman directs.

In early 2010, Kleiman came across a feature article in the New York Times about the child assassin trades in Columbia called the ‘Sicarios’. To quote the filmmaker, “Aside from the horrific nature of these kids’ stories and actions, I wasn’t sure why months later that image of a child gunning down a man stayed with me as much as it did. Until, coincidentally, I came across a quote from one of my filmmaking heroes, Luis Buñuel. The master of Surrealism was quoted as saying something like “I couldn’t think of a more surreal image than one man shooting another man”.

Jeremy Chabriel as Alexander is a striking cinematic presence and it’s his journey that is the internal core of the film. He twigs that Gregori’s paternalism has a sinister controlling aspect that has morally suspect connotations.

At its core, PARTISAN is a film about how sanctuary, security and the status quo can inure us to accept what we instinctively know to be reprehensible.