DEAR DICTATOR Trailer

Dear Dictator is a comedy about a pen pal relationship between high school student Tatiana Mills (Odeya Rush) and an aging military dictator (Michael Caine). After her social studies teacher (Jason Biggs) tells the class to write a letter to their role models, Tatiana decides to write a letter to General Anton Vincent, a man who has ruled his island with an iron fist for years. After his people overthrow him, he flees to America, hoping to stay with Tatiana and her mother Darlene (Katie Holmes). Tatiana decides to help him causing both hilarity and tension, especially once Vincent starts helping Tatiana work through her issues which include a boy she wants to date and a group of mean girls she wants to get back at.

Although the premise seems silly, there is some truth to the story presented in Dear Dictator. A young American girl named Sarah York struck up a pen pal relationship with notorious Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega in the 1980s. Her father suggested she write Noriega after she mentioned she liked his hat. Her pen pal relationship with Noriega even resulted in her travelling to Panama with her family in 1988 and 1989. She actually met Norriega during the second trip, only two months before the U.S. invaded Panama.

Apart from people sending letters to dictators, serial killers apparently get a ton of fan mail as well. Some of them even end up marrying women from the outside world while they’re serving time for killing numerous people. All of the above makes Dear Dictator something to look forward to.

Dear Dictator is directed by Lisa Addario and Joe Syracuse and stars Michael Caine, Odeya Rush, Jason Biggs, Katie Holmes and Seth Green. It will be released in the U.S. on March 16th, 2018 with an as of yet unknown U.K. release date. For international release dates click here.

Which dictator, past or present, would you consider writing to? Let us know in the comments!