Director: Patrik Eklund
A municipal team-building retreat spirals into terror in this Swedish slasher that turns office politics into open warfare.
What is The Conference about?
When a group of city employees gather for a mandatory conference meant to smooth over budget disputes and interoffice tension, whispered accusations of corruption start circulating among the staff. Trust collapses fast, and before the schedule's icebreakers are finished, an unseen assailant begins picking off attendees one by one. Director Patrik Eklund uses the isolated retreat setting to trap his ensemble in close quarters, letting workplace grudges fuel the panic as much as the intruder's presence. Nobody at the retreat is quite who their job title suggests, and the accusations that started as office gossip turn out to matter far more than anyone expected once the killing begins.
Cast & crew
Katia Winter and Adam Lundgren anchor the ensemble as colleagues whose professional rivalry curdles into suspicion, while Eva Melander and Bahar Pars round out a cast of municipal staffers each hiding something. Christoffer Nordenrot and Claes Hartelius add to the roster of targets, and the actors lean into dry Scandinavian humor even as the body count climbs, treating the corporate retreat's forced cheerfulness as its own quiet source of dread.
Context & significance
Released in 2023, the film sits alongside a wave of Nordic horror-comedies that mine bureaucratic settings for scares, swapping remote cabins for conference rooms and slide decks. Sweden's genre filmmakers have leaned into this kind of institutional satire, and Eklund's approach favors dark comedy over graphic violence, running a lean 100 minutes that keeps the tension tight from the opening icebreaker onward. The film's small-town municipal backdrop gives the satire a specific target, poking at corporate retreat culture and workplace hierarchy long before the first scream.
Where & how to watch
The film streams on K-Time with Persian dubbing and Persian subtitles, and the full editorial page is free to read without an account; watching itself requires a quick K-Time login built around a Farsi-first interface for the diaspora audience, with both audio options available directly from the player menu.