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“Getting Along with Bodyguards is Crucial!”: Tommy Gulliksen on His CPH:DOX Opening Night Film Facing War
Facing War Tommy Gulliksen’s Facing War follows Jens Stoltenberg in the final year of his decade-long stint as Secretary General of NATO, a position he’d been looking forward to relinquishing until, in 2023, President Biden asked him to stay on for another 12 months. And it’s easy to see why. The energetic, glad-handing, back-slapping politico seems to treat every world leader as his absolute favorite bestie (Emmanuel! Viktor!), even as he strategizes with his comms team to text the perfect thank you reply. (Though that’s probably standard operating procedure for every commander forced to deal with Trump.)
And yet this former Prime Minister of Norway is so personable and sincerely committed to his cause that every dog and pony show comes across as downright genuine — a necessary skill for the job, as is enjoying the highly choreographed pomp and circumstance. (The latter is benefit not given to the non-elite workers toiling away in obscurity behind the scenes. Luckily, Gulliksen does catch a few oddball moments that pierce the charade, like a guard standing at attention in full state regalia who can’t seem to stifle a yawn, or the frantic woman in Lithuania, vacuum cleaner strapped to her back, clumsily rushing to clean the red carpet.) For whether it’s bartering with Erdoğan in order to welcome Sweden into the alliance, or convincing Orbán to simply stand down while the rest of the members handle Ukraine’s bid to join, the stakes for all are just too high.
A few days before Facing War opened this year’s CPH:DOX, Filmmaker reached out to the Norwegian director (who co-produced the batshit Laibach-in-North-Korea doc Liberation Day back in 2016) to learn how he got such phenomenal access to the NATO “war room,” as well as what was strictly off-limits to his lens.
Filmmaker: So how did this project originate? Was Stoltenberg onboard from the start, or did it take some convincing?
Gulliksen: The dialogue was actually initiated by my producer Anne Marte Blindheim. She had known Stoltenberg for years, first as a political journalist at Dagbladet, where he was one of her sources. That existing relationship helped open the door, but getting full access still required time and negotiation.
We had several meetings with Stoltenberg’s team and even traveled to NATO Headquarters in Brussels to formally pitch our approach. I think Stoltenberg and his advisors realized that they were holding critical positions at a pivotal moment in history, with immense responsibilities on their shoulders, and that this work should be documented. We, of course, agreed. I think both Stoltenberg and NATO wanted to give the audience transparency into decision-making during wartime and that it was in the service of public interest. But even with that shared understanding, it still took time to gain their trust and establish the level of access we needed.
Filmmaker: Yes, you were granted an extraordinary amount of access, which made me wonder if Stoltenberg is always this open to the media trailing him. Had you filmed with him before?
Gulliksen: My producer and I actually worked with him in 2017, when we made a documentary series about all the current living Norwegian Prime Ministers, so we had a basis of trust and we knew each other.
Stoltenberg has always been media-savvy — he understands how the press works, and he’s a highly skilled communicator. But what we were doing was something entirely different. He is used to dealing with media every day, but he’s also used to being able to control when the cameras are rolling and when they’re not. With us that line was blurred.
This project was about filming when they weren’t accustomed to having an independent camera present — capturing moments that weren’t scripted or staged for public messaging. That level of constant observation was new for him. He had been filmed before, notably by Norwegian documentary filmmaker Aslaug Holm when he first rose to power as prime minister in the early 2000s. But I don’t think he initially realized the sheer extent of what we were going to present in this project. Once they let me in, I was hard to get rid of. And none of us anticipated that his term as Secretary General would be extended for another year, which meant filming lasted two years instead of one.
Filmmaker: Your proximity to Stoltenberg likewise allowed you to get up close to a who’s who of world leaders — Macron, Orbán, Erdoğan, Zelensky, Biden, to name just a few. Which made me curious as to what was off-limits to the camera. What boundaries did you have to navigate?
Gulliksen: There were clear legal boundaries regarding NATO’s top-secret meetings, especially military meetings — I couldn’t be in those rooms. But apart from that I had remarkable access to Stoltenberg and his advisors, especially when it came to preparing and discussing agendas, strategies and politics, which I was most interested in.
The biggest obstacles were, of course, other heads of state. Each leader had to decide for themselves whether they were comfortable being filmed. Some were more open than others. My approach was simple: I just kept rolling until I was told to stop. And over time, I became better at staying in the room longer and longer. It was a process of mastering the art of being unnoticeable, learning how to operate in this environment without disrupting the flow of diplomacy. Getting along with bodyguards is crucial! And even learning how to move and think like them helped me a lot.
Filmmaker: I’m also wondering how much footage you actually shot with Stoltenberg and what was left on the cutting room floor. Were there scenes or storylines you just didn’t have time to include?
Gulliksen: We shot over 600 hours of footage across 27 countries. During editing we focused on finding the timeless elements within that material — the moments that wouldn’t just be relevant now, but also in a year, in ten years, or even longer.
We weren’t trying to make a news report or a historical explainer. Instead we wanted to carve out an engaging story that could reflect our times and help future generations understand theirs. That meant we had to be extremely selective. We avoided too much exposition about NATO and European history, etc.; instead going for a cinema verité style where the audience can observe and judge people and events as they appear in front of the camera.
There are definitely scenes left on the cutting room floor that might become historically significant later. We simply had no way of knowing that today. But that’s the nature of documentary filmmaking — you have to make choices based on the story you can see unfolding in the present. It was a long intense process, and I owe so much to my three editors for shaping the final narrative.
Filmmaker: Since Stoltenberg was born into politics, and spent his whole career in that spotlight, it’s not all that surprising that he’s incredibly media savvy. (Though he also keeps his family firmly away from the glare. Besides a few early home movies and a glimpse of his wife after an awards ceremony, we aren’t really privy to his personal life at all.) So did you ever feel he was attempting to control the narrative? Did you discuss rough cuts along the way?
Gulliksen: Our goal was always to portray the Secretary General, not Jens Stoltenberg the private person. What interested me most was the diplomat, the politician, the power broker — not his personal life. He was very open in letting me film, even on his birthday, but that wasn’t the focus of the film.
I know that he personally prefers more traditional, fact-based documentaries — history films with expert interviews and archival footage — but he never tried to push me in that direction. He never demanded to see rough cuts or tried to take editorial control.
The reality is, in his environment, things move so fast and the stakes are so high that they don’t have time to think about a documentary filmmaker following them. Once I was granted access the decision was made, and I just became part of the decor. I showed them some rough cuts of scenes during the process to make them understand how I worked, and that helped. It also made me more confident that they were comfortable with my method.
I watched the final film with him and his wife, and they both liked it. In fact, I think she liked it even more. That was an interesting moment for me — realizing that, even though the film wasn’t about their private lives, it still offered a side of him that his own family rarely sees.
