Stories of Self-Delusion With Joshua Oppenheimer

This episode features a conversation with film director, Joshua Oppenheimer. It was recorded in March 2025.

Joshua gained notoriety through his documentaries The Act of Killing and The Look of Silence, which, amongst their many accolades, gained him Academy Award and BAFTA nominations. 

In fact, back in 2012, it was his extraordinarily beautiful and bizarre film, The Act of Killing, which follows former Indonesian death-squad leaders in reenacting their mass-killings through cinematic set pieces and lavish musical numbers, that put Joshua on my radar. The Guardian called it “The most compelling thing you’ll ever see.” I tend to agree. 

His latest film, entitled The End, hit cinemas in the UK and Germany last week.

The End stars Tilda Swinton, Michael Shannon, and George MacKay, as a wealthy family living isolated lives in a luxurious bunker, two decades after an environmental catastrophe renders Earth's surface uninhabitable. But this isn’t your run-of-the-mill, seen-it-before disaster take, The End is a genre-bending tale that urges us to reconsider the illusions we hold about the fate of our planet and, perhaps crucially, our role in shaping that fate. 

Amongst other things, Joshua and I discussed The End, why we often find living in lies a more comforting situation than facing reality, and the need to challenge the silence and the self-deception that is all around us when it comes to climate.

Additional links:

The End is out now in Germany and the UK. Get tickets to cinemas near you here.

Find out where to stream The End in your location by going here.

Watch the trailer for The End.

Get a sense of Joshua’s inspiration from The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.

Check out the trailers for The Act of Killing and The Look of Silence.

Here’s the panel discussion I mentioned, discussing silence around fossil fuels in Norway.

Creatives for Climate is the largest and most diverse network of change-agents using creativity to drive climate action.

Read George Lakoff’s book, Don’t Think of An Elephant.