At a time when NATO faces an unprecedented crisis threatening its very existence, “Facing War,” due to open Copenhagen’s leading documentary festival CPH:DOX March 19, takes a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the military alliance’s war room. The trailer debuts below.
Norwegian docu director Tommy Gulliksen, working alone, was allowed exceptional access to the organization’s inner sanctum through the current Norwegian finance minister and former NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg, viewed as “one of the great diplomatic beacons,” as stated by CPH:DOX.
Dubbed the “Trump-whisperer” by his fellow NATO colleagues for his ability to engage with the U.S. President during the latter’s first term in office, Stoltenberg was convinced by former U.S. President Joe Biden in 2023 to extend by a year his nine-year tenure as NATO secretary general to make sure the 32 member states would stay united, in the wake of Russia’s war in Ukraine.
That period of extreme tension was captured by Gulliksen in a pure vérité style. The 600 hours of raw footage gathered over 22 months was then mixed with archive material and assembled into this 100-minute film. As Stoltenberg tries to stick to his promise made to president Volodymyr Zelensky that NATO will stand by Ukraine “for as long as it takes,” Gulliksen’s camera immerses us in the power play between leaders of this world.
Cat&Docs sales outfit which just acquired international rights to “Facing War,” says “the film is remarkably timely. It offers rare access to the diplomatic workings of a famous but little-known international institution. And, above all, the documentary highlights a compelling style of leadership, both humane and effective, which contrasts sharply with the recent wave of authoritarian and transactional leaders.”
Jens Stoltenberg with Tommy Gulliksen and a security guard
Courtesy of NATO, PDD
Going back to the genesis of his pic, Gulliksen says the long-time trusting relationship he and his producer Anne Marte Blindheim had with Stoltenberg was crucial in him giving them unprecedented access. A former political commentator, Blindheim had co-directed with Gulliksen the NRK 2017 doc series “Da vi styrke landet” (“When We Ruled the Country”) featuring six Norwegian former heads of state – including Stoltenberg.
“When war in Ukraine broke out, we told Stoltenberg we were interested in covering NATO,” Gulliksen tells Variety. “We knew getting an independent camera in the war room would be unprecedented and tough to obtain, but we never gave up. Stoltenberg and his NATO staff perhaps felt it was a timely opportunity to document a critical time in the history of the Transatlantic Alliance. At a time of fake news and mistrust in traditional media, they probably saw it as a transparency project. But it was a definite leap of faith for them. We eventually signed an agreement, which was very open and transparent, with astonishingly few restrictions to filming and clearing of the material.”
Once he got the go-ahead from NATO, Gulliksen had to face a new challenge: how to make himself as small a fly-on-the-wall as possible. “The question for me was how can a two-meter fly be invisible!”
“I knew I would have to do everything by myself – sound and camera-work. It was a matter of space, as I would often be in a helicopter or Stoltenberg’s private car, but also a matter of security.”
Tommy Gulliksen goes behind the scenes with NATO for “Facing War”
Courtesy of NATO, PDD
BodyguardsIn fact, while the Norwegian politician displayed his art of diplomacy with global leaders, Gulliksen quickly mastered the art of diplomacy with bodyguards. Not only with Stoltenberg’s own large security squad, but with other leaders’ own close guard.
“These guys are the physical gatekeepers to the heads of states, and when you want to be 15 centimetres from Joe Biden, for instance, you have to know how to interact with them,” Gulliksen says. “Sometimes they were fine, sometimes they would grab me by the elbow and say you’re too close. A lot of times, I had the camera pointing in a direction, but my face would be looking elsewhere at the bodyguards to try get their okay.”
About the difficulty of shaping the narrative to make political manoeuvring accessible to a wide audience, Gulliksen says his focus – as with all his cinematic works – was on delivering a “timeless” document of history in the making. “I wanted to stay in the moment with the politicians, to make people understand who they actually are, how they think and act.”
Eager also to break away from the public display of “politicians in popularity contests,” the helmer was happy to show another side of the coin: “Politicians actually working together and negotiating, diplomacy in the making. Being able to capture that on camera has been a privilege that I hope the audience will enjoy as well,” he says.
Quizzed about his personal views on Stoltenberg’s versatile talent, Gulliksen points to his acute professionalism in preparing for meetings, conferences or public appearances, and his special relationship with words to deliver a speech in the least conflictual way. “This is a million miles away from the aggressive exchange between Zelensky (who looked like he was ambushed), Trump and J.D. Vance in the Oval Office that shocked the world,” Gulliksen notes.
There are no villainsBut the invaluable skill that Stoltenberg applied to NATO’s cause, so clearly shown in the film, was his gentle, warm and subtle way of engaging with everyone, whatever their place on the political spectrum, an art of diplomacy he learned at a young age from watching his parents – the prominent diplomat and politician Thorvald Stoltenberg and his wife Karin, also a veteran Labour Party figure in Norway. “Talking to people is essential, even to people you disagree with – there are no villains,” says an advisor to the former NATO chief in the film, whom we see bringing back to the table Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan as he finally approves Sweden’s bid to join the military alliance.
“In a consensus-based political organization such as NATO, you need someone with that acute sense of diplomacy to bring people together around a table, make them put their own agenda aside and find common ground, so that the lowest common denominator is not zero – which would be easy to reach – and you can move forward,” Gulliksen says.
Asked to comment on NATO today and tomorrow, the helmer says: “I want to stay positive. Having approached world leaders at very close range, I’ve seen the way they interact as human beings. I’ve tried to portray them as a big family – and let’s be honest, most families are dysfunctional! But that’s okay. You can have a different history, or a different agenda, you’re still part of the family and you have to stick together, which is what NATO nations do. In our democracies, we are allowed to disagree, to fight, to almost break up, but in the end what we share is stronger that what separates us.”
Gulliksen says he’s now looking forward to the film’s world premiere in Copenhagen, to be attended by Stoltenberg. “It’s a true honor, and I’m eager to let the audience see what they’ve never seen before, so that they can relate better to news coverage about NATO. For a documentary filmmaker, your duty is to reflect on our times. It’s also to capture things that aren’t normally accessible to people. Here, I was able to do pure cinema vérité, which is rare. We did a few sit-down interviews with Stoltenberg, but there were no directions in any shots, nothing was staged. I believe in letting the audience make up their mind on what they see. If you’re pro- or against NATO, it doesn’t matter, you will still get something from watching the film. I didn’t want to give people any answers but trigger conversations.”
Has Stoltenberg seen the film?“Yes! I was in Oslo in his house, sitting between him and his wife. It was a good experience. For any filmmaker, showing your film to your main character is always a bit nerve-racking, a moment of truth. But I believe Stoltenberg saw the value in it. He would perhaps have preferred to have more history in the doc as he’s a history nerd, but he liked the film and so did his wife. There were no big issues either with NATO. They never tried to interfere with the storytelling and were only concerned with security issues. I went there to have a sign off to make sure there were no breaches in the material. It was a very straightforward process.”
“Facing War” was produced by Blindheim and Danielle Turkov Wilson for Gulliksen’s outfit Dox Division (co-headed with director Tonje Hessen Schei), in co-production with NRK, SVT and Think-Film Impact Production. The film was supported by the Norwegian Film Institute, Oslo Film Fund, Viken Filmsenter, Fritt Ord, Nordisk Film & TV Fond, Impact Partners, the Bergesen Foundation, and the Fund for Sound and Image.
The film will compete for CPH:DOX’s main prize the €10,000 ($10,700) DOX:Award, to be handed out March 28. CPH:DOX runs March 19-30.
