A new documentary premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival explores the lives of personal chefs who worked for some of the world’s most feared authoritarian leaders, offering a rare perspective on the intersection of power, privilege and survival inside dictatorial regimes.

“How to Feed a Dictator,” directed by filmmaker Andrew Neel and based on a 2020 book by Polish journalist Witold Szabłowski, examines the experiences of five chefs who prepared meals for leaders including Idi Amin, Saddam Hussein, Pol Pot and Kim Jong-il. Through their accounts, the 95-minute documentary investigates how ordinary professions can become intertwined with systems of repression and political violence.

The film focuses on individuals who occupied unusual positions within authoritarian governments. While not political figures themselves, the chefs enjoyed close access to rulers whose decisions shaped the lives of millions. Their stories reveal both the privileges and risks associated with serving at the highest levels of power.

Neel said the project was partly inspired by the contrast between the familiarity of food and the extraordinary circumstances surrounding the men who consumed it.

According to the director, everyday activities such as eating take on a different significance within authoritarian systems. Meals become not only private moments but also expressions of power, status and control, creating unique pressures for those responsible for preparing them.

The documentary presents a range of experiences and attitudes among its subjects. Some continue to express admiration for the leaders they served, while others describe deep personal regret over their involvement.

One of the most striking accounts comes from Keo Samoun, who worked for Cambodian leader Pol Pot. The film depicts her visiting his gravesite and presenting offerings of food, including fish, fruit and rice. According to the documentary, she continues to regard Pol Pot with reverence years after his death.

The perspective contrasts sharply with that of Italian pizza maker Ermanno Furlanis, who was recruited to prepare pizzas for North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. Furlanis describes an environment characterized by intense surveillance and strict oversight.

According to his account, government officials closely monitored his activities, controlled his travel documents and supervised aspects of food preparation. One incident recalled in the film involved an official entering the kitchen to inspect the placement of olives on a pizza intended for Kim.

The documentary suggests that such episodes reflected broader systems of control operating within authoritarian states, where even routine tasks could become subject to political scrutiny.

Among the film’s participants, Ugandan chef Charles Otonde Odera provides one of the most detailed reflections on the personal compromises involved in serving a dictator. Odera worked for former Ugandan ruler Idi Amin during a period marked by political repression and widespread human rights abuses.

He describes how his appointment dramatically transformed his life. According to his account, he moved from poverty into a position of significant privilege, receiving financial benefits and access to a lifestyle unavailable to most citizens.

The film portrays this transformation as emblematic of a broader dynamic in which authoritarian governments rewarded loyalty and service with material advantages. For many individuals, those benefits created incentives to overlook or ignore the actions of the regimes they served.

Neel said that the notion of a “great job” emerged repeatedly throughout his conversations with former regime insiders. The director noted that personal rewards often played a central role in how individuals justified their participation in authoritarian systems.

The documentary cites examples of substantial perks enjoyed by those working close to political leaders. According to Neel, Saddam Hussein’s chef received a new vehicle annually as part of his position.

Yet the film also examines the psychological consequences of such arrangements. For Odera, the turning point came after the death of Kay Amin, one of Idi Amin’s wives. According to the documentary, reports and rumors surrounding her death prompted him to reconsider the value of the privileges he had received.

Odera recalls reaching a point where he preferred the financial hardships of his earlier life to the moral burden associated with serving the regime. His testimony forms one of the documentary’s clearest explorations of personal conflict and ethical compromise.

The film also devotes significant attention to the chef who served Saddam Hussein. Unlike other participants, the former Iraqi leader’s cook appears anonymously, speaking under a pseudonym and presented visually as a black silhouette.

Neel said extensive measures were taken to protect the individual’s identity. The director explained that concerns centered not on Saddam Hussein’s remaining associates but on potential hostility from others who might object to the chef’s continued expressions of loyalty toward the former Iraqi president.

According to the documentary, the chef remains emotionally attached to Saddam Hussein and speaks about his execution in deeply personal terms. The film portrays this loyalty as evidence of the lasting psychological impact that proximity to power can exert on individuals, even years after a regime has collapsed.

Neel said the decision to conceal the chef’s appearance was also intended to symbolize the personal costs associated with his experience. The visual presentation, he said, reflected the idea that the individual’s former relationship with Saddam had effectively separated him from normal public life.

Throughout the documentary, the chefs’ accounts raise broader questions about responsibility within authoritarian systems. Rather than focusing solely on political leaders, the film examines the roles played by ordinary people who help sustain governments through their daily work.

The documentary suggests that dictators rely not only on military, political and security structures but also on countless individuals performing routine functions. Chefs, drivers, aides and other staff members become part of the machinery that enables authoritarian leaders to maintain their lifestyles and authority.

Neel said this concept formed the central theme of the project. The film argues that understanding authoritarian rule requires examining not only the actions of dictators themselves but also the choices made by those around them.

The director briefly considered including a segment involving a chef who had worked for former U.S. President Donald Trump before his election. However, Neel said the individual ultimately declined to participate after Trump entered politics.

According to Neel, the chef stopped responding to requests for interviews, a development the director attributed to concerns about professional consequences.

While Neel explicitly stated that Trump is not a dictator, he said the abandoned interview highlighted one of the documentary’s recurring themes: the extent to which individuals may remain silent or avoid criticism when professional opportunities and personal interests are at stake.

By examining the experiences of chefs who operated behind the scenes of some of the twentieth century’s most notorious regimes, “How to Feed a Dictator” offers a portrait of how power functions through everyday relationships, and how ordinary people navigate the moral complexities of serving extraordinary leaders.

Militias linked to political parties, some backed by Iran, have tightened their grip over state institutions since the U.S. invasion

Hasanain Alminshid had received death threats for his human rights activism for years, but ignored most of them. After his mentor was gunned down outside a police station, he finally made the difficult choice to flee Iraq.

“It’s too dangerous now. There have been killings in the open in front of security forces,” he said, speaking by ‘phone from Istanbul, where he has based himself since that incident in November last year.

Alminshid, 29, his mentor Amjad Aldhamat and several other activists had attended a meeting with police to discuss a planned protest in their hometown of Amara in southern Iraq during some of the most deadly anti-government unrest that swept Iraq last year.

As Aldhamat walked out, gunmen sped past in a car with tinted windows and no licence plates and shot him dead. Alminshid left the country five days later.

It was one of dozens of targeted killings that have pushed more and more young Iraqi civil society activists, rights workers and journalists to flee what they say is a continuing onslaught by militia groups.

Rights groups say the departure of people whose activities range from educating Iraqis about their right to vote to leading protests against perceived abuses has further weakened civil society movements that have been active for decades.

The independent rights organization Al-Amal says at least 44 kidnappings and 74 attempted killings of activists have taken place, mostly in Baghdad and southern Iraq, in the last year.

It has documented at least 39 killings since October 2019, when thousands of Iraqis took to the streets in mass anti-government protests demanding jobs and the departure of the ruling elite which they said was corrupt.

The protests toppled former prime minister Adel Abdul Mahdi in December but lost steam after more than 500 people were killed in a crackdown by security forces and unidentified gunmen, and during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Assassinations escalated with the beginning of the protests last year,” said Hassan Wahab of Al-Amal. “We have started losing our sources on the ground.”

Reuters spoke to seven activists who fled Iraq in recent months, five of whom said that they were advised by local police to leave because they could not guarantee protection from armed groups.

A military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that security forces were often powerless to protect activists from rogue militias, because those groups had powerful political backers whom he did not name.

Militias linked to political parties, some backed by Iran, have tightened their grip over state institutions since the U.S. invasion that toppled President Saddam Hussein in 2003.

Lost Hope

Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi, who took office in May, has pledged justice for activists killed or abused by armed groups, and has faced off against some Iran-backed parties.

But the formation of nearly 35 committees by the new government to tackle the challenges, including pursuing those responsible for protesters’ deaths, has resulted in no prosecutions so far.

“I’ve lost all the hope I had in Kadhimi,” Aldhamat’s brother, Mohammed Aldhamat, told Reuters in Amara.

Speaking in Amjad’s home, where their mother also lives, he added that his family had been told they would see the results of the investigation into his brother’s death within three months. Four months have passed with no word.

An Iraqi government spokesman did not respond to requests for comment.

A government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said state institutions were “infiltrated” by parties and militia groups that had no interest in punishing the killers of protesters.

The government has vowed to crack down on what it says are criminal armed groups trying to destabilise the country, and to impose state control over weapons as part of efforts to reduce the influence of militias.

Alminshid said a police officer at the hospital where Aldhamat was pronounced dead asked him a few questions, but no one has contacted him since.

The day after Aldhamat’s killing, military authorities in Amara sent a memo to the interior ministry recommending that security forces protect nine other activists it said were on a hit list, according to a document seen by Reuters.

A military official confirmed the document’s authenticity.

One of the activists on that list, 28-year-old Hamza Qassem, got wind of the memo through a friend in the Amara police force and left for Istanbul, where he, Alminshid and other exiled Iraqis who used to run a rights NGO in Amara now reside.

That NGO no longer exists. Seven of its founders are in Turkey and three have been killed.

“Amara has become a terrifying city,” Qassem said.

The main protest site in Amara, which was occupied a year ago by throngs of anti-government protesters, is now sealed off by security forces and metal gates.

“We took to the streets and asked for a nation, but the authorities gave us a cemetery,” said one of the protesters, Haider Halim. “The only solution is to leave.”