Meeting with Pol Pot

Meeting with Pol Pot (Rendez-vous avec Pol Pot) is a 2024 historical drama directed by Rithy Panh, who co-wrote the screenplay with Pierre Erwan Guillaume. A co-production of France, Cambodia, Qatar, Taiwan and Türkiye, the film draws partly on real events and on Elizabeth Becker's book When the War Was Over about the Khmer Rouge era. Set in 1978, it follows three French journalists invited to Democratic Kampuchea for an exclusive interview with Pol Pot. As the regime stages encounters designed to present the revolution as a triumph, traces of a silent genocide slowly erode the visitors' convictions. The story echoes the real December 1978 trip after which the British academic Malcolm Caldwell was murdered.

Irène Jacob plays Lise Delbo, Grégoire Colin plays Alain Cariou and Cyril Gueï plays Paul Thomas. The film premiered on 16 May 2024 in the Cannes Premiere section of the 77th Cannes Film Festival and was chosen as Cambodia's submission for Best International Feature Film at the 97th Academy Awards, though it was not nominated.