A picture of the future – A new movie captures what George Orwell knew about 2026

The Bunker – News without the nonsense

Podmasters

News, Government, Politics, Society & Culture

4.6 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 25 March 2026

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

George Orwell’s vision of a world of constant surveillance, where authoritarians rule by destroying the very concept of objective truth, is coming true in ways the author never predicted – and many ways he did. A new documentary film, Orwell: 2+2=5 by the acclaimed Haitian director Raoul Peck, connects the dots between 1984, Animal Farm, Big Data and mass manipulation in the digital age. Our own Orwell correspondent Dorian Lynskey – author of The Ministry of Truth: A Biography of George Orwell’s 1984 – talks to Andrew Harrison about what George Orwell really understood about the human mind, and why the world needs to stop misusing “Orwellian”. • Orwell: 2+2=5 opens in selected cinemas on Fri 27 March. • Buy The Ministry of Truth: A Biography of George Orwell’s 1984 through our affiliate bookshop and you’ll help fund the podcast by earning us a small commission for every sale. Bookshop.org’s fees help support independent bookshops too. www.patreon.com/bunkercast Written and presented by Andrew Harrison. Audio production by Simon Williams. Music by Kenny Dickinson. Artwork by James Parrett. Managing Editor: Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production. www.podmasters.co.uk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:27.7	slash setup
0:28.6	hello and welcome to another edition of The Bunker your recommended daily intake of news without the nonsense every weekday morning.
0:46.8	I'm Andrew Harrison.
0:48.2	Today, there's probably no more abused word in 26 than Orwellian.
0:54.0	It's become a catch-all term applied to everything
0:56.3	from state and big tech surveillance, right down to matters as diverse as prosecutions for hate speech,
1:02.3	the strange PR activities of FIFA and UEFA, and according to Sualler Barovman in the Telegraph,
1:08.0	the Equality Act 2010. And yet, in an age of total information awareness
1:12.7	and the war on truth, George Orwell's ideas have arguably never been more relevant or more
1:17.7	misunderstood. A new documentary movie from the Oscar-nominated filmmaker Raoul Peck aims to make
1:23.5	some amends amends. Orwell, 2 plus 2 equals 5, blends biography, some of the author's writings,
1:29.8	and clips of film and TV adaptations of 1984 in Animal Farm with contemporary news footage
1:34.9	to show how authoritarianism has spread along the lines that Orwell warned about.
1:39.6	We have Peckarguists become complacent and we'll pay a price for it. And here is a taster.
1:45.9	A society becomes totalitarian when its structure becomes flagrantly artificial.
1:53.3	That is, when its ruling class has lost its function,
1:57.6	but succeeds in clinging to power by force or fraud.
	...

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