Fergus Falls hosts U.S. premiere of documentary about an international scandal which touched the town
Fergus Falls will get some silver screen sparkle as it hosts the U.S. theatrical premiere of the documentary “Inventing Truth: The Relotius Affair.”
The film centers around award-winning reporter and editor Claas Relotius’ fabrication of multiple stories for the renowned German magazine Der Spiegel. Relotius visited Fergus Falls in 2017 for his article titled "In a small town.” It focused on the early days of Trump’s presidency in rural America.
Fergus Falls residents Michele Anderson and Jake Krohn are featured in the documentary. They made international news dispelling lies Relotius wrote about the community. They had been curious about what he had written about the community and decided to translate his piece.
In an interview this week Krohn said they quickly found problems.
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“Things jumped out that didn’t seem to make sense, even basic facts, like the geography of the town, the fact that you could see the smokestacks of the power plant from the front windows of the café, or that there were metal detectors at the doors of all of our schools,” Krohn said. “Other things, too, like the depictions of some of the people in town that he met and that he wrote about, none of it seemed right, it felt like we were reading a story about an alien planet.”
They went on to write their own story about the magazine story. Krohn said Relotius didn’t get it all wrong.
“We said in our story, they got two things, right. They got the average annual temperature and the population,” he said. “Two things you can look up on Wikipedia.”
In 2018 Der Spiegel revealed that Relotius had fabricated many stories. It later published online a list of inaccuracies Krohn and Anderson compiled from the Fergus Falls story.
The revelations caused an international scandal for the prestigious magazine, raising questions about its accuracy and credibility. Relotius resigned from Der Spiegel.
Both Anderson and Krohn were in Denmark last spring for the film’s world premiere at the Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival.
“We had spent days filming and so we did not know what to expect or how we would be portrayed,” Anderson said. “But overall, I think they did a really good job of taking what happened here and tying it into these bigger questions.”
While not its main focus — the film revisits other locations Relotius covered — Anderson said what happened in Fergus Falls is a cautionary tale.
“With the election coming up this fall and the potential for more of this type of wanting to get to the bottom of the rural psyche and Trump voters, we have to be vigilant and check on what we read about communities. It feels timely for me as a resident of Fergus Falls,” she said.
“I really applaud the film team. They took on a big undertaking, and as Jake said, it was risky to take it on in the way they did. And I’m so glad that they brought up these deeper questions and didn’t just kind of tell the through line from start to finish, but they really left us with a lot to think about.”