A Run and an Open Air Film Screening

Yesterday I went to Gland for a mid-afternoon run before watching Disclosure Day at an outdoor cinema. The run route took me along the Toblerones up to Vich, and then I turned East and ran along a road I often cycle along, before then heading back down, over the motorway, and then over the railway line, back to Gland, and then back to the field where the film screening was taking place.

The temperature is lower, so such a run is more pleasant than it would have been a few days ago but by the end I was happy to stop, and recover. I drank 600ml of eletrolytes and sat in the shade to recover. The run was around 7.7km.

Disclosure Day is a new film, by Steven Spielberg. It’s interesting to see how auteur style has changed. I don’t know whether such a film is wise at this moment in time.

In the era of Brexit and other absurd events the idea that a film would put forward a “conspiracy” feels tactless and dangerous. In the era of disinformation a film such as this fans the flames of conspiracy theorists, at the cost of fact based journalism and current affairs.

The footage isn’t fact checked, the context isn’t looked up. Footage is leaked without documentation related to the footage being sourced and it shows how fragile certain news systems are.

I see the final scene and it makes me realise how much I miss working in broadcasting. At the same time it alarms me to see how everyone is watching the “news” on their phones as a mass audience.

I worry that people will watch this film of science fiction and it will encourage them to absorb and accept conspiracy theories without proper fact checking.