In 2016 “post-truth” was chosen by Oxford Dictionaries as their International Word of the Year. Fast forward to 2019: Lies and “Fake News” have been normalised in a slowly eroding level of public discourse. Have appeals to emotion and personal belief become more influential in shaping public opinion than objective facts? What does “speaking truth to power” implicate in 2019?

The 2019 edition of Elevate Festival was dedicated to exploring and debating one of the most important concepts of human society: Truth – and its many (un)secret siblings. Through lectures, debates, workshops and film screenings a variety of topics was discussed: language, media and journalism; technology and art; the climate crisis and migration, as well as the rise of the extreme right and the politics of secrecy and lies.

This video is a commissioned work produced in the framework of the Re-Imagine Europe project, co-funded by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union.