Staffan Julén

Tel: +46 73 509 92 15

E-mail: [email protected]

Senior Advisor, Artistic Researcher

I am a Senior Adviser and Project Researcher at the Institute for Futures Studies, as well as a producer, documentary filmmaker and author.

I have worked at the institute since 2018, when I began the artistic research project “The Biggest Lie Is the Documentary – What Does a Subjective Documentary Film Language Mean in the Age of Post-Truth?”. The project grew out of my experiences making LYUBOV – Love in Russian together with Svetlana Alexievich. The project resulted in the feature-length documentary Love in Swedish and the essay collection Jakten på det autentiska (The Search for the Authentic), co-edited by Marit Kapla and me. The interviews for the film also formed the basis of Marit Kapla’s book Kärlek på svenska (Love in Swedish) and a stage adaptation directed by Nadja Weiss at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm in 2024. The research project concluded in spring 2023.

Alongside my own projects, I have established an artistic research department at the institute and contributed to several research projects. I am currently involved in two research projects in Greenland focusing on self-determination and cultural resilience. From 1 January 2027, I will lead the three-year artistic research project “Arctic Hysteria – Piblokto, Science, Myth and Fiction”, funded by the Swedish Research Council and based at the Institute for Futures Studies. The project examines how colonial myths and poorly substantiated ideas about people in Sápmi and Kalaallit Nunaat acquired scientific authority and came to be accepted as truth – and how artistic and documentary storytelling can bring these ideas to light and reassess them. The project brings together artists Britta Marakatt-Labba and Julie Edel Hardenberg, author and historian Maja Hagerman, and filmmaker and film researcher Christian Rossipal.

Three recent works

Sonen (The Son), novel, Kaunitz-Olsson (2025).
Waiting for Life, 83 min (2023). Watch on Vimeo.
Love in Swedish, 100 min (2022). Watch on Vimeo.

A wider selection of my films is available at staffanjulen.com.

Frequently cited works

LYUBOV – LOVE IN RUSSIAN, 89 min (2017)
Directors: Staffan Julén and Svetlana Alexievich
Over several years, 2015 Nobel Prize laureate in Literature Svetlana Alexievich explored the Russian psyche’s relationship to love – something she sees as being in desperately short supply in today’s society. Made together with documentary filmmaker Staffan Julén, the film follows this work and portrays a process driven equally by political, artistic and humanistic concerns.
Watch on Vimeo (English subtitles)
My Two Films about Greenland
My two films about Greenland, made in the 1980s and the 2000s, have gained renewed relevance in today’s geopolitical context. Both were screened publicly in Greenland in autumn 2026.
- INUGHUIT – THE PEOPLE AT THE NAVEL OF THE EARTH, 85 min (1987)
  Directors: Staffan and Ylva Julén
  Filmed in 1983, the documentary portrays life in Qaanaaq, Greenland, one of the world’s northernmost communities, where hunting, the seasons and ancient traditions still shape everyday life. At the same time, the American military base, Thule Air Base, modernisation and American cultural influence have fundamentally transformed the community. The film follows the Inughuit’s daily life, history and concerns about the future.
  Watch on Vimeo (English subtitles)
- THE PRIZE OF THE POLE, 78 min (2007)
  Director: Staffan Julén
  American explorer Robert E. Peary devoted his life to reaching the North Pole. In the film, his Inuit great-grandson Robert follows in his footsteps. Along the way, he encounters the story of Minik, the sole survivor of six Inuit whom Peary brought to New York – and a family history that becomes increasingly difficult to bear.
  Watch on Vimeo (English subtitles)
The New Moderates – The Story of the New Workers’ Party, 2 × 58 min (2015)
Director: Staffan Julén
A young team carries out a blue revolution that almost everyone would have dismissed beforehand as impossible. Starting with the Moderates’ defeat in Sweden’s 2002 election, the film portrays what some see as an unlikely success story. Others describe a nightmarish period of clumsiness and an inability on the part of the labour movement to formulate a convincing response.
Watch Part 1 – The Transformation
Watch Part 2 – The Administration
In Swedish, without English subtitles.

Projects

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