NATO holds secret meetings with movie makers

One screenwriter has called the series of gatherings with creatives a case of “clear propaganda”.

NATO is holding closed-door consultations with TV and film industry professionals across Europe and the US, The Guardian reported on Sunday. The move has prompted accusations that the bloc is working to leverage the arts for “fear mongering” and “propaganda,” it added.

The military bloc has held three private meetings with directors, producers and screenwriters in Los Angeles, Brussels and Paris, and is planning to convene with members of the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain (WGGB) in London next month, the newspaper wrote.

The upcoming meeting will be overseen by the British think tank Chatham House and will discuss the “evolving security situation in Europe and beyond,” according to the report. NATO cyber and innovation technology deputy head James Appathurai is expected to attend, among other officials, the newspaper added.

So far, the conversations have partly “inspired” at least “three separate projects,” The Guardian wrote, citing an internal WGGB e-mail.

The military bloc’s move has reportedly sparked concern in the film and TV industry. The planned meeting is “clearly propaganda,” Irish film writer Alan O’Gorman said, as cited by The Guardian.

“I think there’s fearmongering throughout Europe at the moment that our defenses are down,” he reportedly said, adding that he has seen a media and government push in Ireland “to present NATO in a positive light and align ourselves with them.”

Other screenwriters were “pretty offended that art would be used in a way that was supporting war” and believed they were being asked to “contribute towards propaganda for NATO,” he said, according to the newspaper.

The Washington-led military bloc has been undergoing a growing internal rift, with US President Donald Trump again describing NATO as a “paper tiger” after multiple member states refused to join his war on Iran in recent months. Tensions between European NATO countries and the US had already been heightened by Trump’s threats in preceding months to annex Denmark’s autonomous territory of Greenland.

The greatest threat the bloc currently faces emanates not from “external enemies,” but rather its “ongoing disintegration,” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Saturday.