Starting this Thursday, March 2nd, Columbia Missouri will host once again the True/False Film Festival for documentary films from all over. Created back in the summer of 2003, the festival has grown in stature and size each year since. The participating theaters screening the films are all within walking distance of each other making the event accessible and convenient to catch all the films you can muster the energy to see.
This will mark my first year attending and it is my plan to view 14 films in those three days and four nights. Included is the critically lauded and Oscar nominated Raoul Peck film, “I Am Not Your Negro”. These are experimental and subject rich films that deserve an audience. There is no better place than to showcase to a receptive public such as the one that will be attending this festival. The filmmakers themselves will be present and discuss their work. Documentaries have long been neglected by mainstream audiences, but films such as Peck’s have the possibility to change that.
Notes will be taken and forthcoming blogs will be written about some of these films and the festival experience as a whole. Columbia has sealed a specific niche in the festival circuit by focusing its attention to real life issues, events, and subjects otherwise forgotten in the Hollywood light. A festival dedicated to documentaries of all sizes and shapes can enhance understanding and knowledge of the world around us to possibly influence change.
Here is a celebration of truth, or as close as we can get to it.
BRAKE into FILM 