As Turkey moves closer to a crucial referendum on the sweeping executive powers its president wants, the authorities have made it clear that nothing about executive presidents — even imaginary ones — can be a laughing matter. The creators of a short comedy film learned this the hard way as their fictional schnitzel-craving president was barred from debuting on the big screen.

Co-directed by Kaan Arici and Ismet Kurtulus, the 22-minute film — “The Last Schnitzel” — stars Haluk Bilginer, one of Turkey’s finest male actors. It features a president “in an imaginary country in a very distant future,” Kurtulus told Al-Monitor. As all nations are scrambling to leave the vanishing Earth for Mars, the president of the Grand Turkish Republic wants to have a chicken schnitzel and sends his chief aide out to find him the dish. This, however, is no easy task, as food no longer exists on Earth, where all humans take nutrition pills.

In order to show the movie at film festivals in Turkey, the directors had applied for a license from the Istanbul Copyright and Cinema Directorate. In February, the agency asked that certain scenes be removed before the film was resubmitted for evaluation. The directors refused to comply, ending up without a license, which means they cannot screen the movie in Turkey.

In a written response to Al-Monitor’s questions, Kurtulus declined to elaborate on the scenes the directorate wanted cut, explaining that the answer would amount to a spoiler for prospective viewers, who will watch the movie abroad, if not in Turkey. Given that Turkey’s agenda today is dominated by debates over the presidential system, this new episode of censorship suggests the authorities’ stance is politically motivated.