Available on DVD: “The Island President”

The Island President is a mostly compelling documentary about that rarest of breeds, an appealing politician. That would be Mohamed Nasheed, until recently president of the Maldives, and the film focuses on his attempts to agitate for strict global-warming rules at the Copenhagen Climate Summit in 2009.

It's an issue that obsesses Nasheed: The Maldives are a chain of low-lying islands off the southwest coast of India, and even a modest rise in the ocean level could wipe them out.

Young and charismatic, Nasheed came to power after working against the Maldives' longtime president, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, under whom he was imprisoned, and, he says, tortured.

After detailing Nasheed's rise to office, the film switches to his preparations for the Copenhagen summit, including visits to eroding Maldives shorelines. Director Jon Shenk is clearly a fan. Nasheed comes across as energetic and committed, and possessed of a sense of humor — to raise awareness about greenhouse gas emissions, he once held a Cabinet meeting underwater.

A good chunk of the film shows Nasheed's work at the summit, and while the maneuverings are important for what they tell us about the lack of political will in some nations to make important changes, they aren't as intriguing as the earlier material.

What the future holds for Nasheed is unclear — the film informs us, at the end, that he left the presidency in February. Nasheed resigned after weeks of protests by political opponents; he describes what happened as a coup d'etat