Food is a shared love language that brings us together. But what happens if the person you’re feeding might have you executed?

Expanding on Witold Szablowski’s book of the same name with the cinematic gut-punch of Andres Veiel’s Nazi propaganda-piercing documentary Riefenstahl (2024), you’ll never forget Andrew Neel’s Tribeca-bowing documentary How to Feed a Dictator which is a timely reflection on history prompting the need for constant vigilance of world leadership

You’ll meet Cambodian chef Keo Samoun who says she was a naïve kid when she served Pol Pot (she was 19 and still leaves tributes at his grave). Saddam Hussein’s chef Abu Saif is staunchly unashamed, as is Jorge ‘Coco’ Pacheco, who plated up for Pinochet.

Otonde Odera may have served a human heart to Ugandan strongman Idi Amin. But perhaps the most chilling of all is Italian pizza-maker Ermanno Ferlanis, who casually brushes off Kim Jong-il’s mass starvation tactics with a big smile.

Journalist and academic Ruth Ben-Ghiat has a spectacular way of cutting through their outright lies and murkier self-deception.