We are happy to announce the feature films included in our 2016 program! Each of these films expands the boundaries of nonfiction cinema, inviting audiences to be challenged, inspired, and entertained.
Several films are celebrating their debuts at True/False. The Pearl takes a sensitive look at gender through the eyes of four middle-aged trans women. The Prison In Twelve Landscapes is an impressionistic essay film about the prison-industrial complex. In Peter and the Farm, we unearth a rural tragedy in Vermont.
2016 also brings a marked increase in international titles, including films from China, Iran, Iraq, Australia, Argentina, and the Philippines. Discoveries include Those Who Jump, a landmark collaboration between two German filmmakers and first-time co-director Abou Bakara Sidibé about migrants seeking to scale the fences that separate Africa from Europe. Thy Father’s Chair is set in a transcendently messy Brooklyn apartment. From Argentina comes the intimate family story Nosotras·Ellas. Other films include Behemoth, a staggering journey through Inner Mongolia’s ravaged grasslands; Another Country (Australia), a guided tour of the outback; Between Sisters (Italy), in which a long-buried family secret is excavated; Helmut Berger, Actor about an uneasy relationship between subject and filmmaker and Michael Shannon Michael Shannon John (Canada), which seeks to locate a father who abandoned his family.
Fresh from Sundance comes director Roger Ross Williams’ inspiring, true-life fairy tale Life, Animated, which will play as the fest’s Jubilee film. Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You is Heidi Ewing & Rachel Grady’s fresh spin on the celebrity bio-pic. And the layered and revelatory Tickled transcends its silly subject matter. Coming from their Toronto film festival launches are Presenting Princess Shaw about an unlikely musical collaboration; Sherpa, an adventure film with a political conscience; and The Music of Strangers from Oscar-winning® T/F favorite Morgan Neville (Twenty Feet From Stardom).
As part of the fest’s commitment to the cutting edge of nonfiction, True/False is embracing films that experiment with content and form. Titles include Deborah Stratman’s first feature, The Illinois Parables, Roberto Minervini’s The Other Side, Robert Greene’s Kate Plays Christine, and Sergio Oksman’s O Futebol.
2016’s previously announced True Vision Award recipient, Mehrdad Oskouei, will be appearing with a couple of films including his newest, Starless Dreams, set in a rehabilitation center in Tehran. Also previously announced as the recipient of our True Life Fund, Sonita follows Sonita Alizadeh, a young Afghan rapper.
Also previously announced for the 2016 Neither/Nor series, the archival program of films that muddles the borders between fiction and nonfiction, True/False Film Fest is collaborating with film critic Nick Pinkerton on a series exploring Mondo cinema. Films in this series include the critically acclaimed Des Morts (1979), as well as cult documentary classics Mondo Cane (1962), The Killing of America (1981), and Africa Addio (1966).
2016 slate here!