George Clooney is coming to Poland for the first time to the Freedom Games, festival of ideas in Łódź, taking place 24–26 October 2025.
Clooney will take part in a special event: a one-hour conversation that I will have the pleasure of hosting. There will be no broadcast, livestream, or recording of the discussion. The only chance to see the two-time Oscar winner in person is to purchase one of the fast-selling tickets.
The Freedom Games have not transformed from a festival of ideas into a film festival. Clooney is not coming to promote a new Hollywood production, a luxury brand, or to pose for red carpet photos.
It was Clooney who drew the world’s attention to the bloody war in Darfur — a conflict that claimed more than 200,000 lives between 2003 and 2005, yet was largely ignored. We are outraged that Africa seems indifferent to the war in Ukraine today. But did we, in the wealthy and developed world, remember Sudan?
Clooney is an engaged democrat, unafraid to risk public criticism in order to tell — and sometimes show on screen — uncomfortable truths about his fellow citizens. He strongly protested against the Iraq War, at a time when almost everyone had fallen for the lies of the George W. Bush administration.
He has never shied away from challenging not only his opponents but also his allies. The actor wrote an open letter to Joe Biden, calling on him to withdraw from the presidential race — a move that sparked a nationwide debate and ultimately led, albeit too late, to Kamala Harris’s candidacy. Clooney sees his involvement in public affairs as a civic duty, even though it would be far easier for him to tell charming anecdotes on late-night talk shows.
An enraged Donald Trump wrote about Clooney on his Truth Social platform:
“So now fake movie actor George Clooney, who never came close to making a great movie, is getting into the act. He’s turned on Crooked Joe like the rats they both are. What does Clooney know about anything?…Clooney should get out of politics and go back to television. Movies never really worked for him!!!”
Asked about this tirade, Clooney simply replied:
I’ll do that when he does.
[a pointed reference to Trump’s early fame from the TV show You’re Fired!].
Many years ago, Clooney directed the outstanding film “Good Night, and Good Luck,” which explored the mechanisms of fear, conformity, and moral panic during the McCarthy era. It showed how courage, independence, and journalistic professionalism can burst a balloon of lies like a soap bubble. Without independent media, without collective effort, and without our individual civic courage, truth cannot defend itself. The algorithm does not favor truth.
Today, as Trumpism — with its brazen lies and intimidation of the vulnerable — dominates not only the United States but also spreads across the globe, we need civic courage and nuanced storytelling more than ever. We need compelling narratives. Come and listen to one of the great storytellers and actors of our time.
Freedom Games, Łódź, 24–26 October 2025.
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