Reality/Resistance: The Nostradamus Report and Collective at Audiovisual Days 2025

The Nostradamus Collective is a new platform within the long-running Nostradamus initiative, designed to support structured, year-round dialogue and foresight work. It brings together professionals from across the film and television ecosystem to explore emerging challenges, shared responsibilities and long-term industry resilience. The session at Audiovisual Days, moderated by Koljonen, invited participants to engage more directly with the report’s insights and translate them into questions relevant to their own professional realities.

From Forecast to Framework

Authored by Johanna Koljonen and commissioned annually by Göteborg Film Festival since 2013, the Nostradamus Report analyses emerging trends in the audiovisual industries through research and interviews with international experts. The 2025 edition depicts an industry under pressure yet rich with possibilities. It urges professionals to move beyond denial and develop structural, strategic and shared resilience in response to democratic backsliding, technological acceleration and shifting audience dynamics. It also positions storytelling within a broader struggle over truth and democratic values, noting that in politically turbulent conditions, cultural space becomes both more fragile and more important.

Koljonen’s presentation set an urgent but hopeful tone, calling for realism without resignation. She argued that in an era of instability, the industry’s task is not to resist reality but to prepare for it – mentally, organizationally and artistically. She emphasized the need to strengthen collective structures, defend creative freedom and rethink how the industry organizes itself to stay functional in unstable conditions.

Imagining Resilient Futures

The Nostradamus Collective built on the report’s insights through foresight exercises and shared reflection. Participants came from across the film and television industry, representing a broad range of roles, experience levels and perspectives. Together, they discussed how creativity, ethics and adaptability can be sustained in a sector characterized by rapid and transformative change.

The session worked with three near-future scenarios, each introduced through a short video prompt featuring sector experts. The first explored democratic resilience and digital vulnerability, raising questions about data ownership, disinformation, foreign influence and the role of AI in eroding public trust. The second examined how accelerated technological change could reshape production, distribution and creative processes. The third focused on increasingly fragmented audience behavior. Taken together, the scenarios reflected challenges many already encounter in their daily work and encouraged participants to respond rather than retreat.

As the discussion unfolded, the scenarios became a springboard for a broader reflection on what resilience means in practice. Participants explored how both creative work and a sense of community can be sustained in an increasingly unstable world, and which values and working methods are needed to continue telling meaningful stories in a landscape shaped by AI, political polarisation and shifting audience habits. Collaboration across individuals, organisations and communities was seen as essential to a resilient sector, and many highlighted the role of local engagement in strengthening the industry’s ability to withstand political and technological volatility.

Truth, Trust and Storytelling

Several reflections circled back to questions of truth and trust, particularly how to uphold artistic integrity in an information landscape increasingly blurred by AI and disinformation. These discussions align with Göteborg Film Festival’s newly unveiled theme Focus: Truth, which will examine how film can mirror and challenge our understanding of reality in an age of post-truth and eroding trust.

The final scenario opened a discussion about how changing audience behaviour is reshaping storytelling itself. In a media ecosystem defined by digital platforms and participatory culture, the relationship between creators and viewers is evolving rapidly. Participants reflected on the rise of short-form content, microdrama and hybrid modes of storytelling that allow audiences to move seamlessly between watching, remixing and creating. Several noted that these developments raise new questions for both creators and the wider industry. Younger generations already navigate these roles fluidly, a shift that is likely to influence not only how stories are conceived and shared but also how they are financed, circulated and experienced in the years ahead.

Realism Meets Hope

The session closed on a note of realism and hope. While participants acknowledged the scale of the challenges, they expressed a shared determination to act and adapt. Several noted that conversations like this, grounded in shared learning, open reflection and future-focused thinking, are increasingly important for a sector facing constant change.

Many concluded that the future health of the audiovisual ecosystem will depend on resilience, collaboration and a renewed sense of collective purpose. The Nostradamus Collective will continue this work, offering a space for industry professionals to exchange insights, navigate uncertainty together and discuss more robust pathways for the future.