Focus:Truth. Samtalsdag
Presented in collaboration with Riksbankens Jubileumsfond.
Free admission with Festival Pass
In Focus: Truth, we explore how truth is portrayed, shaped, manipulated, and questioned. Here we turn perspectives inside out in conversations with sharp researchers, filmmakers, and journalists.
10:00–10:45: The USA Podcast takes the temperature of the status of truth
Under Donald Trump, the American administration’s relationship to truth has changed. How do resistance to facts and denial of science affect journalism and the media, academia, business, the American people and society—and the rest of the world?
Participants: Sara Stenholm, Roger Wilson
10:55–11:40: The conditions of truth – in this brave new world?
In a time of acute geopolitical upheavals, the conditions of truth are increasingly in focus. How are the narratives of world politics shaped and conveyed by porous boundaries between fact, interpretation, and staging, and how is our perception of reality affected by perspectives, statistics, and competing narratives? What claims to truth does democracy require—and how are they challenged by fragmentation, accelerating disinformation, and tricksters? When the status of knowledge weakens and citizens’ perceptions drift apart, the resilience of democracy and the foundations for possible justice are put to the test.
Participants: Kari Andén Papadopoulos, Professor of Media and Communication Studies, Stockholm University; Andreas Bergh, Associate Professor of Economics, Lund University ; Johannes Lindvall, August Röhss Chair, Political Science, University of Gothenburg; Ola Sigurdson, Professor of Systematic Theology, University of Oslo
Moderator: Lena Ulrika Rudeke, Director of Operations and Programming, Jonsereds Manor, University of Gothenburg
The conversation is presented in collaboration with the University of Gothenburg and the Church of Sweden.
11:40–12:15: Festival films in the service of truth
In the documentary Elon Musk Unveiled – The Tesla Experiment, it is described how Elon Musk and his company Tesla launched an unfinished product and, with fatal consequences, used ordinary people and public space for test runs. Hear director Andreas Pichler talk about the process and the investigative work. (In English)
The fiction film No Comment is inspired by real-life political scandals—most notably the stock-trading scandal involving Norway’s former Prime Minister Erna Solberg and her husband, Sindre Finnes. Screenwriter Ståle Stein Berg talks about the work on the film that was predicted to decide the Norwegian election.
13:15–13:45: Steal This Story, Please!
Filmmakers Carl Deal and Tia Lessin ask what would happen to democracy if the press were to yield to power, in their film about the acclaimed independent journalist Amy Goodman. Meet Deal in a conversation about the work on the film and Goodman’s Democracy Now! (In English)
13:45–14:30: Difficult and invaluable – investigative journalists
What is it like to work with investigative reporting in Swedish media today? What resources are available, and what resistance does one encounter? And which satisfaction is greater: the chance to land a scoop or the satisfaction of making a societal impact?
Participants: Axel Björklund, Editor-in-Chief, Uppdrag granskning; Mattias Göransson, Editor-in-Chief, Magasinet Filter; Julia Lindblom, investigative reporter, Göteborgs-Posten, and author of the book The Last Mile.