I remember returning home shortly after 9/11, having been abroad for a few weeks. Mildly neurotic as I am, I started reading the newspapers that had piled up in my absence in chronological order. The experience was quite shocking: I was reading news that until very recently had held the world’s attention – and then suddenly had turned into ancient history. I especially remember reading about the low approval ratings for President Bush – whose polls went through the roof after Americans rallied behind their leader following 9/11.
Watching Tommy Gulliksen’s Facing War (the opening film of CPH:DOX 2025) has a similar effect: although it offers an instructive reflection on the present moment, it already feels like it’s coming from a distant past – a lost era.
A time when President Biden led the US and Norwegian Jens Stoltenberg, the subject of this documentary, was NATO Secretary General, tasked with keeping the allies united in their response to Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
There are hints of our current times in the film. There is the moment when Stoltenberg greets then-Dutch PM Mark Rutte, who would succeed him as Secretary General in 2024 – two genial personalities, from smaller countries, generally well-liked across the political spectrum.
We see Starmer appearing as British leader, replacing Sunak and Cameron before him. We see Scholz, but not yet Merz. Meloni and Macron were there already, and still are. Orbán and Erdoğan remain as well, continuing to be disruptive elements within the Alliance – which they ultimately would not want to leave.
And then there is the moment Stoltenberg reads out a friendly text he receives from ‘The Donald.’ as one of Stoltenberg’s personal advisers calls him, thanking him for getting the NATO allies to increase their military budgets.
Now, one might wonder if Trump appreciates having his texts to the NATO Secretary General read out in front of a documentary camera. While there is nothing controversial about the message, it does undermine the presumption of discretion which is essential to the Secretary General’s diplomatic efficacy. One might wonder why Stoltenberg would agree to risk damaging that sense of confidentiality for himself or his function.
Don’t worry, Gulliksen tells Stoltenberg at a certain point: this will only be shown long after the fact. Elsewhere, Stoltenberg notes that what he’s about to say may have to be cut from the film later. Suggesting that Stoltenberg himself (and his team of advisers, no doubt) had a say in the final cut, assessing the risk of diplomatic fallout for specific scenes and remarks.
As it is, one of the most striking moments that made it into the film is when Stoltenberg, whispering but clearly audible, tells Zelenskyy they can “push” smaller allies to agree (making a pushing-down motion with his hands), but not Washington and Berlin – this is certainly not how these “smaller allies” would want to be seen discussed on the world stage.
Of course, everybody knows this is how it works. But that doesn’t mean you should say it out loud. Just as Stoltenberg’s private, but on-camera admittance that he doesn’t know if he can keep his promise to Ukraine that NATO will support it “today, tomorrow, and for as long as it takes,” is both unsurprising and, let’s say, not very diplomatic – for a function whose sole weapon is diplomacy. I don’t have any weapons I can give them, Stoltenberg ruefully remarks when the US Congress is holding up military aid to Ukraine.
Should he call out Congress publicly on this, he asks his advisers, or would that only make them more entrenched? These discussions with his advisers – on the train to Kyiv, among other places – which are sometimes followed by the resulting official statements, are among the most fascinating scenes in the documentary, which obviously had limited access to Stoltenberg’s negotiations with world leaders.
One notable exception is when Stoltenberg walks up to Orbán before a meeting, confirming that the Hungarian leader won’t vote against further aid to Ukraine as long as his country doesn’t have to pay for it, after which Cameron asks Stoltenberg if additional pressure on Orbán is necessary, telling the Secretary General: “We’ll follow your lead.”
At another point, Stoltenberg is quite explicit about his own political goals, when he says to Gulliksen: “I don’t think there can be peace and stability in Ukraine without Ukraine being part of NATO. But membership is not something that is possible to get allies to agree on today. Because then NATO will be at war with Russia, and no one wants that. On the other hand, if we say that they can only become members when the war is over, that will give the ultimate incentive to President Putin to just continue the war.”
Scenes like these are more than enough to keep Facing War interesting throughout, even if only a small part of NATO’s inner workings is ultimately revealed. The soundtrack by Norwegian electronic music duo Röyksopp adds to the flow of the documentary, highlighting moments of tension without over-dramatising.
The most interesting aspect of this documentary, however, is how it compares to our current situation. When we hear Stoltenberg promise “for as long as it takes,” this sounds very different now that we have a leader in the White House who seems at least as sympathetic to Putin as to Ukraine. And when we read, in one of Gulliksen’s explanatory texts, that “NATO is based on the principle of unity – one for all, all for one. Maintaining this unity is the task of the Secretary General (…) In his final year, preserving that unity will be crucial for Europe’s future,” it now sounds less like a goal and more like a threat.
At moments like these, Gulliksen’s documentary feels like history in the un-making. But amidst all these changes, some of them historic, one thing remain: we are still facing war.
Norway/Belgium, 2025, 100 minutes
Director Tommy Gulliksen
Production Dox Division
Producers Anne Marte Blindheim, Danielle Turkov Wilson
International sales CAT&Docs
Script Anne Marte Blindheim, Tommy Gulliksen
Cinematography Tommy Gulliksen, Øistein Bloch Haukeland
Editing Erik Treimann, Margrete Vinnem, Øistein Bloch Haukeland
Sound design Vidar Hemmingsen, Odin Eggen Brække
Sound Håkon Lilledal Østmoe
Music Röyksopp
With Jens Stoltenberg, Joe Biden, Volodymyr Zelenskyy
