Göteborg Film Festival Launches 13th Nostradamus Report “Challenging Projections”
Today, May 18, Göteborg Film Festival launched the 2026 Nostradamus Report at Marché du Film in Cannes. The 13th report, Challenging Projections, authored by media analyst Johanna Koljonen, maps the audiovisual landscape as one connected ecosystem and examines how traditional ideas about business models and success are being challenged and redefined.
Annually commissioned by the Göteborg Film Festival since 2013, the Nostradamus Report analyses and forecasts the near future of the audiovisual industries through research and interviews with leading industry experts.
The 2026 report captures an industry navigating overlapping upheavals. Film, television, streaming, and creator media are no longer separate lanes but parts of one connected ecosystem. TV drama contracts, short-form scripted video is surging, and feature film production volumes are increasingly unsustainable. Starting out online now offers viable paths both into our industries and to independent creator careers, and many talents refuse to choose. The logic of the New Content Economy increasingly describes sustainable business models for all forms of IP – popular storytelling and fan creativity both sustain long-term value and demand serious attention. At the centre of this transformation sits one urgent question: whose definitions of value and success shape our art, industry, and aspirations?
“To the traditional film and TV industries, things like the creator ecosystem or the positive qualities of vertical video used to feel really abstract. But in the last year, creator-led theatrical features and the microdrama surge have finally made it click.” Johanna Koljonen says.
“What we’re still struggling with is understanding how this media ecosystem works, especially around our content, and this year’s Nostradamus report updates that map.”
Key insights from the 2026 Report:
- Projections
With global systems in upheaval and media power concentrating into fewer hands, navigating the road ahead requires grounding ourselves in observable facts rather than projecting our fears onto the sector’s map. - The Situation
TV drama production is settling at around 75% of its peak, while feature film output hits records and micro-dramas boom. The boundaries between film, television, streaming, and online video are dissolving. - Creators and Influencers as Film Professionals
Scripted online content has been a path into film and TV for over 15 years, yet industry prejudice against creators continues to block recruitment pipelines and obscure how our ecosystem already works. - Traditional Work in the New Content Economy
The creator business model, built on direct audience relationships and diversified revenue, increasingly applies to all IP, opening real possibilities for work that relies less on traditional funding. - Reckoning With the Popular
The film industry's tendency to equate the popular with the trivial draws the wrong lessons from unexpected successes and stands between our work and audiences. - Fans and Creators as Creative Partners
Creator, fan, and audience-community production now play a central role in launching titles, sustaining IP value, developing talent, expanding storyworlds, and reshaping traditional media’s relationship with online creativity. - Reimagining Success
From measuring impact over box office to ensuring the whole ecosystem can thrive, the report asks what success should mean – for institutions, companies, and the individual people who make this industry work.