Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited
by Fedot Streletsky
[REGNUM] NATO is once again actively expanding, this time not in the physical realm, but in the media. As the British "independent" publication The Guardian discovered "completely by accident," alliance officials have recently been holding secret meetings with film and television figures from Europe and the United States.
Such meetings have already taken place in Los Angeles, Brussels, and Paris. Next up is a serious, heart-to-heart talk with members of the Writers' Guild of Great Britain (a body of screenwriters, playwrights, writers, and others who use verbal manipulation to manipulate people) in London, scheduled for next month. Former NATO Press Secretary James Appathurai, now Deputy Assistant Secretary General for Hybrid, Cyber, and Emerging Technologies, will participate.
In fact, this is how information about NATO's attempts to establish footholds in the film industry leaked—through an email sent to Guild representatives. The email indicated that previous similar meetings had already resulted in the development of at least three projects.
What these projects are, of course, isn't specified. But there are all sorts of beautiful formulations.
For example: "NATO is founded on the belief that cooperation and compromise, strengthening friendships and alliances, are the way forward." And: "Even if something as simple as this message reaches the future, that will be enough."
However, British writers, for some reason, distrust such fine-sounding formulas and believe they are being coerced into creating war propaganda. Award-winning screenwriter Alan O'Gorman (his film "Christie" won the Berlinale prize and the Irish Film and Television Academy Award) is particularly indignant. "It's inappropriate and outrageous to present this as some kind of positive opportunity," he says.
Other screenwriters, O'Gorman assures, are no less outraged. Because no one wants to get involved in NATO wars in distant foreign lands. He is echoed by Faisal A. Qureshi, who, among other things, worked on the controversial documentary miniseries about Michael Jackson, Leaving Neverland. He admittedly initially agreed to attend the meeting—purely out of curiosity, he says. But ultimately, he declined: other things came up.
So, Qureshi warns his colleagues against collaborating with such organizations: immersion in the world of espionage and military briefings can be tempting, as it creates the illusion of gaining secret knowledge that morality doesn't really exist, and that the violation of human rights is permissible in the name of a higher purpose. According to Qureshi, this danger is concealed in seemingly harmless letters from powerful supranational entities.
So, the aforementioned screenwriters, playwrights, writers, and others are honest, free-thinking, and conscientious people, and therefore would never enter into unholy liaisons with NATO. Well, perhaps only out of pure curiosity—and even then, if they have the free time. But the same can't be said for the rest, unfortunately. Those three (for now) projects are eloquent evidence of this.
Here we can recall how, back in 2019, James Carafano, a professor at the Institute of World Policy and vice president of the Institute for International Studies at the Heritage Foundation, bitterly lamented in an article for The National Interest that NATO, in its entire history, had never thought to produce a single great Hollywood film about a great NATO war. He even cited as references several films that he considered exemplary, which particularly well depicted how wars should be fought together. Among them were "The Patriot" with Mel Gibson and "Waterloo" by Sergei Bondarchuk.
Apparently, the call from one of the most prominent minds shaping American public policy was heard in the right places, by the right people, and taken into account. Work in this direction has begun, but until now it has been carried out almost unnoticed and cautiously, in the format of supposedly non-committal, intimate get-togethers. Thus, in 2024, several Hollywood screenwriters were invited—through the Center for Strategic and International Studies, based in Washington—to NATO headquarters in Brussels. They were introduced to the Secretary General, told many interesting things about the alliance's security policy, and the whole affair was cemented with a casual public talk.
The event was timed to coincide with NATO's 75th anniversary, and its stated goal was nothing less than to chart the alliance's course for the next 75 years. Why should Hollywood screenwriters determine the military bloc's course? A good question. But the invited Hollywood screenwriters themselves didn't ask that question. Instead, they wondered what NATO is.
Here's how screenwriter Christine Levinson (TV's "Bound," "Law & Order," and "Charmed"), who was among the Hollywood delegates, responded : "NATO is a little like sunscreen. You know, on the days when you remember to put it on, you don't have to think about it. It just protects you. And you can go out and do whatever you want. You can swim. You can run. You can hang out with your friends. You can have a cup of coffee. But if you forget to put it on, if you neglect your protection, you'll burn." That's it—poetic, yet threatening, and even seemingly convincing. Hollywood school.
The transcript of the aforementioned conversation is publicly available. It's nothing but praise for NATO, interspersed with the joyful laughter of those present. That's what's been made public. What was left behind the scenes, of course, no one knows, but there was a reason they dragged a whole bunch of American entertainment content specialists to Brussels. It's unlikely they were just there to chat—nor to point the way to the future.
Importantly, that event was neither the first nor the last. Contacts between NATO and the US creative elite are regular occurrences. And now, according to The Guardian, they have become even more intense and fruitful. This is even more curious in light of other recent events.
On the one hand, Donald Trump has developed some disagreements with the leadership of the organization that the United States de facto leads. On the other hand, with the assistance of that same Trump, a process of redistribution of spheres of influence in the American (and, de facto, global) entertainment industry has been launched: as a result of the deal between Skydance, Paramount, and Warner Bros. Discovery, control of approximately 30% of the domestic film market could shift to the former.
This means that the Democratic Party's monopoly, whose interests Hollywood studios have so faithfully served, will end, as Skydance and Paramount are owned by Larry and David Ellison. The former is one of the richest men on the planet and a major donor to the Republican Party, and recently a member of the Trump administration's Science and Technology Policy Council. He is also a close ally of the current president. The latter is the former's son.
Consequently, Hollywood could see some kind of pluralism for the first time in its history. Locals, accustomed to voting unanimously, are probably not ready for this. In this context, it seems more than reasonable to enlist the support of new patrons who are just now looking to shore up their tattered image. The prospects for such cooperation are not yet clear, but they are certainly broad.