The staged, the faked, the synthetic, the AI-generated, the dramatic, the polished, the entirely made up. In this year’s edition of Tempo Documentary Festival we will deep dive into the fictional and explore how different forms of fiction create perspectives on reality and shift the boundaries for documentary storytelling.
Fiction and documentary: a dynamic combination
Fiction as a method for documentary storytelling is the main focus of Tempo Documentary Festival 2025. How can we use hybrid storytelling to illustrate real stories and phenomena? When does something seize to be documentary? In a time characterized by dishonesty as a political tool, social media’s focus on the exterior and the introduction of artificial intelligence in both art and every day life, the concept of “fictions” is very topical.
With a broad selection of films who in different ways problematize these themes, we examine the concept of truth from many angles and study the stories we tell ourselves to create meaning and context. We dissect how our understanding of history can be shaped and reshaped, and how this affects our understanding of the now.
Image source: Wishing on a Star dir. Péter Kerekes
