Stronger than Fiction

In an age of shifting truths and blurred realities, documentary filmmakers are confronting the question at the heart of modern storytelling: what is real, and who decides? New releases exploring environmental resistance, ideology, philosophy,

and crime (and using artificial intelligence), tackle this question from different angles.

🌿 YANUNI: Defiance and Survival in the Amazon

Few environmental documentaries open with such urgency as Yanuni. Austrian filmmaker Richard Ladkani captures the story of Juma Xipaia, a fearless Indigenous activist and the first woman elected chief in Brazil’s Middle Xingu region. Through lyrical cinematography and raw political intensity, Yanuni traces Juma’s journey from a determined teenage advocate seen in a 2009 archival footage to a seasoned leader who has survived six assassination attempts. Her journey is that of an avatar, but unlike the imagined ones we create, Juma is a real hero (Variety).

One of the film’s most gripping sequences unfolds during a protest in the capital of the country, Brasília, where the police open fire on demonstrators and Juma. It’s a visceral reminder of both the stakes of her struggle and the courage it demands. In equal parts a documentary and an act of defiance,Yanuni captures the fight for the Amazon through the eyes of a woman who refuses to yield.

📚 ORWELL: The Politics of Perception

Raoul Peck’s Orwell: 2+2 = 5 is a sharp, reflective meditation on George Orwell’s writing and its enduring relevance. Taking inspiration from 1984, the film probes the metaphysics of fascism, the moment when power over language becomes power over truth itself.

Peck uses Orwell’s words as a framework to examine how state control, misinformation, and social manipulation evolve in the modern world. The title’s chilling reference (a forceful state that can dictate reality itself, in which 2+2 equals 5) becomes a lens through which to explore how consent and reality can be engineered. Drawing from his signature political clarity, Peck’s film doesn’t just revisit Orwell’s warnings, it asks how close we’ve come to living them in our own time (Variety).

🤖 AI: Can It Retell the Truth?

From true crime to philosophy, filmmakers are finding new ways to use AI to reshape narrative form. Spirit Studios’ Ed Gein: Original Psycho reexamines America’s most gruesome killer through AI-powered reconstructions and archival footage, offering a chilling look at how technology can expose (or distort) the psychology behind real-world horror. With Ryan Murphy’s Monster: The Ed Gein Story still in Netflix’s top-ten charts, the film extends the cultural fascination with the blurred line between curiosity and obsession (Deadline).

Meanwhile, a 90-minute international co-production, based on Christos Kafteranis’ best-selling book, applies advanced AI linguistic modeling to simulate a dialogue between Socrates and Confucius. Supported by Chinese and Greek cultural institutions, the project becomes a philosophical experiment in how digital intelligence can bridge civilizations. Together, these works reveal how AI isn’t just reshaping filmmaking: it’s redefining the boundaries between imagination and history (The Manila Times).

What is real?

Across continents and disciplines, these documentaries share a common thread: the struggle to (re) define truth. Whether it’s an Indigenous leader’s resistance in the face of violence, Orwell’s battle against ideological distortion or AI’s role in reframing the past, each film reflects a world wrestling with perception, power, and survival. As reality and fiction have been coexisting in the same spaces, it is more vital than ever that documentaries help us understand what we believe to be real.

Best,

Laura