Just because the war room is the kitchen and the PACs are your friends wearing “unofficial” T-shirts doesn’t make the battle for middle school class president any less fierce. This spirited film drops us into four different middle schools across the country to follow a disparate group of 12-year-olds as they gear up for the cupcakes, posters, rallies and speeches and then brace themselves for the final count on the titular day. More than anything, we’re taken in by the rich characters: politically savvy Sam, spunky Kayla running against two best friends, and innocent, earnest Mick, trying to make do in a school that can’t afford textbooks. These kids mean business, and yet are also refreshingly uncynical about what role they might play if elected. Third Monday offers a rich lens into race, class, identity and the meaning of popularity — while delivering on the who-will-win drama. (DW)

Sunday, Mar. 4, 10:30am; Blue Note

In person: director Vanessa Roth

Our sister fest, The Third Coast International Audio Festival, based in Chicago, champions the new frontier in aural documentaries. In 2006, it conducted this audio experiment that invited people to produce short audio works, following absurdly specific rules. We’ll play some of the highlights: Boris the Mover (Carma Jolly) before #13 Working Title at 10am Saturday; Secret Life of an Australian Mother (Euridice Aroney) before #16 Kamp Katrina at noon; Til Death Do Us Part (Sasha Aslanian) before #20 Welcome Europa at 2:30pm; Do What You Fear and the Fear Disappears (Sarah Boothroyd) before #23 Manufactured Landscapes at 5pm; and They Didn’t Get Along (Rick Moody and Mike Hearst) before #28 Row Hard No Excuses at 10pm.

Saturday, March 3, various times (see below) With Third Coast’s Julie Shapiro

From New York and Los Angeles all the way to the world championships in Finland, Air Guitar Nation exposes the underground craze in which pseudo players compete to most-stylishly rock out on a nonexistent instrument. This surprising crowd-pleaser could very well have been a one-note lampoon of lunkheaded rocker dudes. But while it’s absurdly funny, Air Guitar Nation is also a surprisingly poetic film about self-expression and liberation. With a resolute lack of snark, it celebrates these outlandish adopted personas, archetypes from every bombastic, tongue-wagging, strut-crazy rock era. They include C-Diddy, whose outsize stage presence includes a flowing red cape, a bare chest and endlessly malleable expressions. But rival Dan Crane, aka Bjorn Turoque, an ’80s style rocker with ambitions to be the “ambassador of air,” wants to knock him off his throne. (PS)

Friday, Mar. 2, 10pm; Forrest Theater

In person: director Alexandra Lipsitz

SPECIAL HOMETOWN SNEAK PREVIEW

What is “aisling,” and do we really need a movie about it? Well, aisling is a hybrid sport akin to synchronized swimming with shopping carts. As for the second question, the answer is a resounding “yes.” Directors Bojtor and Dessau managed to take the concept of an improbable competition and find real drama in the stranger-than-fiction lives of our fellow Columbians. Funny, touching and even thrilling, Shopper is that rare hybrid that offers the best of both fiction and documentary. (DW)

Plays with America (dir: Chris Boeckmann; 8 min) — An unreliable history of our country, 30 seconds at a time. Made on a digital still camera by local 16-year-old Chris Boeckmann.

Prior to the films, join us at 6:30 pm in the Missouri Theatre lobby for the closing night reception prepared by Addison’s.

Sunday, Mar. 4, 7:30pm; Missouri Theatre

In person: co-directors Tamas Bojtor and Sybil Dessau, producer Katie Mustard, and star Jonathan Gotsick

SNEAK PREVIEW

While The Office employed documentary tics — the shaky camera, the awkward zooms, the earnest talking-head interviews — it was thoroughly fictional. The Armstrongs, also from the BBC, takes the gambit one step further by going into a real-life office, a double glazing company in Coventry to be exact. Fortunately for director Fergus O’Brien, he found a husband-and-wife pair, Ann and John Armstrong, the owners of U-Fit, who are so quotably daft that the laughs come quicker than most sitcoms. And that’s one reason why Brits are divided over whether the film is real or scripted, observed or acted. “Is The Armstrongs too good to be true?” asks Phil Hogan of the Observer. “The production values are suspiciously high, with a lugubrious voiceover from Bill Nighy, gloriously arch incidental music and razor sharp editing. Whatever; it’s quite priceless.” Both entertained and incredulous, British audiences have lapped it up; at T/F we’ll see whether an American audience will succumb as well. (PS)

Saturday, Mar. 3, 10:30am; Missouri Theatre

In person: director Fergus O’Brien

Banished delves into a hidden chapter in US history — the forcible expulsion of African-Americans from various cities around the country. Through visits to three affected towns, including Pierce City, Missouri, and Harrison, Arkansas, and time spent with the descendents of those driven from their homes, director Williams teases out the true stories of mob violence and the troubling legacy left behind in these all-white towns. This legacy, from seized property to unmarked graves, gives the film present-day power and forces the discussion into the contemporary. Banished is far more than a polemic, though. Williams brings his sly curiosity and strong screen presence into many scenes, making for hilarious moments — like his sit-down interview with a Klan leader — and incisive social commentary. (DW)

Saturday, Mar. 3, 10:30am; Blue Note

In person: director Marco Williams

A heavily tattooed Buddhist monk sits cross-legged atop a column, meditating as the sun rises. His eyes open, he stretches, and we are immediately aware of the quiet charisma this traveling teacher possesses. This exquisitely shot film takes us into the Golden Triangle region of Thailand, where Phra Khru Bah Neua Chai Kositto, aka the Tiger Monk, has built a temple, orphanage, school and clinic. It is here that he mentors the outcast children of the region in horsemanship and martial arts. They thrive under his tutelage and travel with him. Granted unprecedented access, director Verkerk reveals the children’s transformation from lost boys to agents of change. (DW)

Sunday, Mar. 4, 4pm; Missouri Theatre

In person: Mark Verkerk; Ton Okkerse

When Brian Steidle took a job as an unarmed observer in the Darfur region of the Sudan, it’s safe to say that he had no clue what he was going to encounter. Armed with only a camera, this former Marine captain found himself a helpless observer to the genocide that took place when the Arab-controlled government offered active support to the Janjaweed militias, who carried out systematic torture, rape and murder against local villages and tribes. Journalists couldn’t get in, but when Steidle got out, his feelings of outrage and powerlessness drove him to leak his photos to the press. True/False alums Annie Sundberg and Ricki Stern (The Trials of Daryl Hunt) document Brian’s personal transformation from witness to activist. (DW)

Sunday, Mar. 4, 1:30pm; Missouri Theatre

In person: co-directors Annie Sundberg and Ricki Stern

Enemies opens with footage from 2003. At a crowded conference to determine the political future of Afghanistan, a young woman stands at a podium. She turns to address the assembly, telling them, “Many of you have blood on your hands.” Pandemonium erupts. She is thrown out of the session. Flash forward to 2006. This same young woman, Malalai Joya, is attempting to become the first female member of the new Afghani parliament. She has armed guards (there have been four attempts against her life) and travels in secrecy, but she is a hero to many Afghanis. Enemies of Happiness is an election drama, a glimpse into a hidden Afghanistan and a portrait of an extraordinarily brave woman who is changing the world. It is also a cinematic wonder, full of passion, humor and beauty, as well as a provocative debut from this Danish director. (DW)

Plays with Sari’s Mother (dir. James Longley; 21 min.) In 2003, James Longley went to Iraq to document a country under occupation, and emerged with the stunning Iraq in Fragments. Sari’s Mother is a missing chapter that tells the story of a poor family living south of Baghdad, and how one courageous mother struggles to get help for a sick child in the shattered healthcare system.

Saturday, Mar. 3, 1pm; Missouri Theatre

In person: director Eva Mulvad

SNEAK PREVIEW

One of the most unforgettable images from 9/11 was a photograph of a falling man, frozen in mid-air against the twin towers of the World Trade Center. It was taken by the AP’s Richard Drew, who decades earlier was one of only four photographers to record Bobby Kennedy’s assassination. At first, the Falling Man photo ran in newspapers around the world, but by the next day it was erased from history in a case of mass self-censorship. Falling Man the film is a philosophical detective story that seeks to discover the identity of the man and to give memorial to the unknown victims of the tragedy. By the end, it comes face to face with the mythos of the plucky American character and replaces it with something much more winning and complex. (PS)

Thursday, Mar. 1, 9:30pm; Forrest Theater

In person: director Henry Singer and photographer Richard Drew

When police lieutenant Laurel Hester battled cancer, she didn’t bargain for another titanic struggle: to leave her earned pension to her domestic partner. With less than six months to live, Laurel refuses to back down when her elected officials — the Ocean County Freeholders (New Jersey) — deny her request, which is routinely granted to heterosexual married couples. Freeheld’s nail-biting political fight plunges us into the middle of a hot issue: as Laurel’s plight worsens, it spurs a media frenzy and a passionate advocacy campaign. But it also is invested with tremendous personal detail: Wade documents a loving couple on the verge of losing each other.

Waiting Room: Launderette (dir. Colm Martin, 29 min.) finds visual poetry in a British laundry which attracts all comers — Martin treats the business as a confessional and wrings out one personal revelation after another from the varied characters who come to do their wash. (PS)

Sunday, Mar. 4, 12:30pm; Forrest Theater

In person: director Cynthia Wade

They call them “ghosts,” as that’s almost surely what they’ll soon become. In the ghettos of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, few gang members survive the downward-spiraling, survival-of-the-vicious violence nurtured by generations of political instability. Asgar Leth’s nearly inconceivable documentary — Variety critic Todd McCarthy found it amazing that the director survived the filming — follows two gang leaders, 2pac and Billy, brothers by blood but rivals on the street and for the affections of the same French woman. These gunslingers smoke weed and cruise the streets as violence threatens to erupt at any time and from any direction, and they become etched in our memories, the most vivid, tragic characters you’ll see on screen this year. Thanks to its on-the-streets immediacy, explosive colors and brutal honesty (2pac talks by phone about his plans to become a rapper with Haitian legend Wyclef Jean), there is nothing in the nonfiction canon to compare to Ghosts. (JS)

Sunday, Mar. 4, 6:30pm; Blue Note

In person: director Asger Leth

Experience and heredity etch a permanent record on our bodies and souls. In these four films from around the world, we meet people who struggle, overcome and come to terms with their personal topographies. In Mon Beau Sourire (My Beautiful Smile) (5 min.), Angèle Diabang Brener shows a glimpse of the Senegalese tradition of dying women’s gums black. Mark Aitken uses a creative and evocative narrative style to tell the story of one woman’s journey from Vietnam to London in Until When You Die (29 min.). Three visually impaired women share their experiences in Dan Monceaux’s evocative short film A Shift in Perception (16 min.). In Stopping My Stutter (31 min.), Dylan Wyn Richards follows the painful yet joyous journey of Martin Thomas, a man attempting to stop his stammer. (KLC)

Sunday, Mar. 4, 10am; Ragtag

In person: Mark Aitken

SNEAK PREVIEW

Mrs. Pearl, a flamboyant fixture of old New Orleans, is a Katrina survivor. After the hurricane, her big old house in the upper Ninth Ward becomes home base for a ragtag bunch of the dispossessed. They move into the backyard, set up tents, and dub their new home Kamp Katrina. Things at first are idyllic, but gradually the sense of shared adversity dissipates and the realities of the situation take over. There are few amenities, few jobs, and plenty of tension. Though Ms. Pearl and her husband attempt to lay down the law and enforce harmony, the situation threatens to turn ugly. Directors Sabin and Redmon immersed themselves in the day-to-day life of Kamp Katrina, and their unobtrusive camera catches all the action, from drunken revelry to disturbing violence. Though Katrina’s aftermath is the ever-present background, this is really a story of people forced to live in proximity, and their struggle — against nature, addictions, and bureaucracy. (DW)

Plays with Attention Getting Style (dir. Jay Buim, 4 min) — New condominium complexes and other businesses in Southern California try to get a leg up on the competition, and the vast subculture of sign twirlers are thus in demand.

Saturday, Mar. 3, noon; Ragtag

In person: co-directors Ashley Sabin and David Redmon

SNEAK PREVIEW

Hop on board the express bus (with music by the Pine Hill Haints) at 9am outside Kevin’s World (26 N. Ninth St., across from the Blue Note), and make our annual pilgrimage to the closed-down Bull Pen livestock barn. After a delicious locally produced brunch, a short hoedown and an auction, we will play King Corn. It tells the story of two young city slickers, Ian and Curt, who move to Greene, Iowa, to grow an acre right in the heart of the Corn Belt. They buy into the entire commercial ag program, from anhydrous ammonia and oversized tractors to genetically modified seed stock. But doubt is sown by critics such as Michael Pollan, who intimates that something’s not right in the American Eden. (PS) With a Q&A conducted by Anna Lappe, author of Grub: Ideas for an Urban Organic Kitchen.

Sunday, Mar. 4, 9am; Bull Pen Cinema

In person: producer/star Curtis Ellis and director Aaron Woolf

The hit of the Slamdance Film Festival, The King of Kong tells the super-charged story of one man’s quest to set the world record on Donkey Kong, and another man driven to ensure his failure. If this sounds like a Hollywood plot, it will be soon since the film’s remake rights were bought by New Line. But before the casting agents get their hands on this, we’ve got a chance to meet the real Steve, Billy and Doris, an 81-year-old Q*bert champ, and find out what makes them tick. Some things are predictable — these grown-ups all seem to have a part of them stuck in their childhoods — others are wonderfully fresh, like Doris, who steals the film as an unrepentant lover of video games. The real story here, though, is the rivalry between Steve and Billy, both 40-something family men, both obsessed with besting each other and the machine. Director Seth Gordon has worked narrative magic, sifting through hundreds of hours of footage to deliver this engaging look at the games people play. (DW)

Saturday, Mar. 3, 10:30pm; Forrest Theater

In person: star Steve Wiebe

A bold, experimental character study that combines aesthetic purity with uncommon insight into the life of this misunderstood legend. Director Schnack (a former Columbian and MU graduate) eschews easy conventions of pop biography to paint a complicated and revealing portrait of Kurt in his own words. Schnack draws upon 25 hours of never-before-heard interviews (conducted by writer Michael Azzerad), mixing Kurt’s narration with breathtaking footage of his formative environments. These dreamlike visuals are expansive, but also tied concretely to the narrative. A soundtrack by Ben Gibbard (Death Cab) and Steve Fisk (producer of Nirvana and other northwest bands) mixes a haunting original score with snatches of songs from bands that Kurt liked such as the Melvins, Big Black, and the Raincoats. Kurt’s words, the visuals and the music create a complete package, tell his heartbreaking story with more emotion and effect than ever before. (DW)

Sunday, Mar. 4, 1pm; Blue Note

In person: director AJ Schnack

We are given, at first, pieces of the puzzle: a frog farm, enmeshed in scandal; a traumatized kidnap victim; an American learning the art of bullet-proofing cars; a plastic surgeon specializing in replacing ears. Soon, Jason Kohn has spun these incongruous pieces into a socio-political-economic mystery, a whodunit that asks how Sao Paolo, Brazil, became a world capital of violence and corruption. Kohn’s film, winner of Sundance’s Grand Jury Prize, has a playful tone and a patient camera that’s reminiscent of early Errol Morris films (indeed, he’s a Morris protégé). But Manda Bala (which translates as “send a bullet”) takes on dead-serious issues: class warfare, demagoguery, and the brutality that some humans wreak on others. It’s hard to remember a documentary that’s simultaneously as funny and horrifying as Manda Bala, an invaluable addition to South America’s rich cinematic history. (JS)

Plays with Motodrom (dir: Joerg Wagner; 9 min.), a hypnotic and highly stylized portrait of midway motorbike riders.

Saturday, Mar. 3, 8:30pm; Missouri Theatre

In person: director Jason Kohn

Edward Burtynsky does not point and click. He researches, conducts interviews, observes and then waits for the perfect moment. As a result, his photographs transmit enormous amounts of information and emotional power. And despite their ugly subject matter — the after effects of mass-manufacturing and industrialized culture — they are breathtakingly beautiful. As director Jennifer Baichwal follows Burtynsky through industrialized China and to a Bangladeshi oil-processing plant, she demonstrates her own steady hand, precise eye and substantial patience. Her magnificent scans of Burtynsky’s photos reveal the rich detail, remarkable depth of field and absolutely stunning color that are found in every print. On its surface, Manufactured Landscapes is an appeal for environmental sanity. But it also offers an examination of the possibility of storytelling through the still image, reminding us of the visceral, aching impact a great picture can have. (JS)

Saturday, Mar. 3, 5pm; Ragtag
Sunday, Mar. 4, 8pm; Ragtag

In person: cinematographer Peter Mettler

WORK IN PROGRESS SCREENING

Somehow in all our government and mass media’s hand-wringing about “insurgents” in Iraq, little attention has been paid to who they are and what they want. For all we know, they are just malcontent democracy-haters who like launching missiles and killing Americans. Meeting Resistance is that rare kind of journalism that seeks to answer the questions that the media never ask. Set in the streets, alleyways and tea shops of Baghdad’s Adhamiya neighborhood, the film witnesses how the insurgents began to organize themselves, revealing why they decided to violently oppose the occupation and how and why their motives have changed. Shot over 10 months during 2003-2004, the film explodes one delusion after another, such as the notion that more troops will do the trick, and foretells Abu Ghraib, the inconsequence of Zarqawi’s death, and many other developments. (PS)

Saturday, Mar. 3, 5:30pm; Forrest Theater

In person: Daniel Chalfen; Steve Connors; Molly Bingham

Each year for the last 54 the Navajo Nation crowns Miss Navajo, a young woman who represents the ideals of traditional values and Navajo culture. Crystal Frazier, 21, lives with her family on the reservation in Table Mesa, New Mexico. She’s a tomboy and a little shy, but something about the pageant captures her imagination and ignites a competitive spark. She begins to prepare by working on her talent, studying the language and, of course, figuring out what she will wear. As we follow her path to the pageant, we’re introduced to former Miss Navajo winners who discuss what the title has meant to them. Everything culminates in the competition when Crystal meets the other contestants and they prepare to go before the judges. Though Miss Navajo follows a path blazed by other “competition” docs, in the end, it tells the richer stories of the struggle to hold onto a disappearing culture and the bonds that can unite across generational lines. Funny and heartwarming, this film puts beauty pageants into a whole new light. (DW)

Plays with Cross Your Eyes, Keep Them Wide (dir. Benjamin Wu; 18 min.) — At Creativity Explored, a drop-in art center for adults with developmental disabilities, art is a fact of life. In this well-crafted observation, the camera is a comfortable friend and the art and artists are just as serious and talented as any anywhere.

Sunday, Mar. 4, 2:30pm; Forrest Theater

In person: director Billy Luther and subject Crystal Frazier

He is an aging eccentric who hopes for a free workforce to repair his castle. She is a no-nonsense Russian Orthodox nun who plans to turn Vig’s battered old building into a proper place of worship (remove those Hindi icons, please). With the question of mortality floating just outside of the frame, Mr. Vig and Sister Amvrosija walk the grounds of the once-magnificent Danish castle, taking stock of the crumbling ceilings, the watermarked walls and rotted pipes and disagreeing entirely about what to do next. Not since Grey Gardens has a documentary immersed itself so completely in such a memorably decrepit place and affectionately at-odds couple. Pernille Rose Grønkjær spent five years filming at the castle and by film’s end has become part of this strange family. Her compassion, sense of humor and patience make The Monastery one of the more charming, amusing and touching documentaries in memory. (JS)

Plays with Portrait #2: Trojan (dir: Vanessa Renwick; 5 min.), a tone poem about a nuclear power plant, punctuated by a doozy of an ending. With a soundtrack by Sam Coomes of Quasi.

Saturday, Mar. 3, 6pm; Missouri Theatre

In person: director Pernille Grønkjær

At 10 am, the T/F train leaves the station with a shorts program that takes you all over the map. it begins with the little-seen gem, Night Mail (dir. Harry Watt and Basil Wright, 23 min., 1936) — With a live original soundtrack by Ken Thomson, New York avant-jazz vikings Gutbucket breathe new life into this classic documentary about the British mail train. Fighting Cholitas (dir. Mariam Jobrani, 20 min.): Dressed in their traditional long, layered skirts, a group of Bolivian women become Lucha Libre wrestlers every Sunday. Fruitloop and Arwegian Rick (dir. Jeff Shroyer, 3 min.) — Animated freight-train hopping. May I Please Speak to Vartan (dir. Alex Jablonsky, 9 min.) — A story about debt, fear and a phone that won’t stop ringing. The First Day of Spring (dir. Runa Islam, 2005, 7 min.) — A gorgeous magic-hour look at rickshaw drivers waiting in a park in Dhaka, India, and who are removed from the cacophony of the city. (DW)

Sunday, Mar. 4, 10am; Forrest Theater

SNEAK PREVIEW

At first, director Brett Morgen was just intending to shoot some quirky commercials about a basketball-crazed town in a back corner of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. But then he realized he had found a real-life Northern Exposure, and he decided to make an eight-part television series there. What emerges is a symphonic, sympathetic rendering of Red State America. Morgen locates the lyricism of rural life — a patriarch walking in the woods with his grandson, codgers mixing it up at the diner, an extended family out ice fishing. But he also effortlessly captures percolating drama: a flare-up between Natives and whites, a botched attempt to slaughter a pig and, of course, the never-say-die fortunes of the scrappy basketball squad, the Nimrods, a name whose modern meaning is a far cry from the biblical “mighty hunter.” (PS)

Friday, Mar. 2, 5:30pm; Ragtag
Sunday, Mar. 4, 5pm; Forrest Theater

In person: director Brett Morgen

Beginning with a stunning aerial shot that moves swiftly across a desolate high desert dotted with rough-and-tumble dwellings, we know we’re entering another America. In a 16-square-mile patch of northern New Mexico, far from electricity, running water, and any rule of law, the brother and sister Stulbergs offer up intimate access to a sequestered subculture. They introduce us to an apocalyptic mix of hippies, rebellious runaways, and Gulf War vets whose experiences have shown them the limits of civilization. The 300 residents of the Mesa, some of whom call it the “largest free-range insane asylum in America,” are not living out some bucolic dream but more of an uneasy, violence-specked life. While ill-suited to mainstream life, they seem to thrive, or at least survive, far from the strip malls. When a group of rebels known as the “Nowhere Kids” begin to stockpile weapons and steal food, however, something has to be done. (PS)

Plays with Buscando Victoria (dir. Margaret Mair; 13 min.) — Searching Cuba for a Puerto Rican revolutionary who vanished without a trace.

Saturday, Mar. 3, 10am; Forrest Theater

In person: directors Jeremy and Randy Stulberg

Starting its life as an anthology of stories, letters and poems written by soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan for an NEA program, this could easily have been a gassy paean to sacrifice and honor. But Operation Homecoming‘s impact approaches the multilayered war literature of veterans/novelists Tim O’Brien, Anthony Swofford and Tobias Wolff, all of whom feature in the film. Memorable sequences abound: a terrifying journey manning a Bradley vehicle through an ambush, a touching journey of a fallen private taken back to his ghostly hometown, a comic bit about the excruciating grind of tent life. Operation employs a rich visual palette that changes from passage to passage, and it’s aided by a voice cast of celebrity narrators — Robert Duvall, Aaron Eckhart, and Blair Underwood, among others. Operation Homecoming is a wrenching you-are-there experience, exposing us to the full range of feelings experienced by those on the battlefield. (PS)

Saturday, Mar. 3, 8pm; Forrest Theater

In person: director Richard Robbins

The venerable Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences have honored four short documentaries with Oscar nominations for 2006. The films, all moving and compelling stories, range from portraits of intensely difficult life to ones of inspiration. The Blood of Yingzhou District (Ruby Yang, 38 min.) — In rural China, people give unsafe blood donations, causing HIV infection and orphaned children. Recycled Life (Leslie Iwerks, 38 min.) — Central America’s largest and most toxic garbage dump in Guatemala City hosts thousands of adults and children who have been living, eating and working there over the last 60 years. Rehearsing a Dream (Karen Goodman & Kirk Simon, 39 min.) — Talented 17-year-old artists spend a week in a mentorship project with inspiring and well-known artists. Two Hands (Susan Rose Behr, 18 min.) — The story of pianist Leon Fleisher, who lost his ability to play with his right hand at the height of his career. (KLC)

Thursday, Mar. 1, 6:30pm; Forrest Theater

In person: director Leslie Iwerk

SNEAK PREVIEW

The sharp and satirical Radiant City both deepens and personalizes the age-old critique that suburbs are soul-crushing, Earth-killing fiascos. We’re plunked in to the geography of nowhere, where we meet the sympathetic Ross family. Nick is a sardonic teen who befriends a dog on his street but doesn’t know any of his neighbors. His dad is in a community production called Suburb: The Musical, which irks his wife who doesn’t like her lifestyle ridiculed. Interspersed are factoids including how the average driver spends the equivalent of 55 working days a year commuting by car, and a Greek chorus of suburban tour guides such as James Howard Kunstler, who puts it bluntly: “This way of living is coming off the menu.” The first collaboration between Gary Burns (Kitchen Party), whose wry comedies have made him one of Canada’s most celebrated directors, and Jim Brown, a radio journalist for the CBC, Radiant City reflects a fresh fusion of journalism and feature filmmaking. With a gritty soundtrack by Joey Santiago of the Pixies. (PS)

Saturday, Mar. 3, 3:30pm; Blue Note

In person: directors Jim Brown and Gary Burns

SPECIAL PRESENTATION

When the average boy falls in love with a film, there’s a good chance he’ll buy a copy, memorize a few lines and move on. But when 12-year-olds Eric Zala and Chris Strompolos fell in love with Raiders of the Lost Ark, they took a different route, creating a shot-by-shot remake complete with stunts. First shown to a surprised audience in Austin, Texas, this film is becoming a national sensation, with screenings around the country drawing huge crowds. What’s the attraction? Maybe it’s something in our universal psyche, a desire to take what is known and remake it, paying tribute as we do. But film is a complicated medium, and the process of imitation inevitably becomes one of translation. And with each translation, that which was original and “true” becomes something new and different. In most cases, this is boring at best. But something magical happened as these men spent the better part of their youth in this quixotic quest: They created something altogether new and wonderful. (DW)

Sunday, Mar. 4, 3:30pm; Blue Note

In person: Eric Zala & Chris Strompolos

In the fall of 2001, John Zeigler and Tom Mailhot set out to win “the world’s toughest race”: 3000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean in a rowboat. As a sport, ocean rowing is less than 10-years old — fewer people have rowed across the Atlantic than have climbed Everest — but the 2001 race still drew 36 teams willing to risk the isolation, seasickness, cramped conditions and treacherous weather for the glory of the crossing. Zeigler and Mailhot, the only US team in the race and at 51 and 41 among the oldest competitors, entered the race with high hopes of winning. But the grueling crossing is easy to underestimate, and their quest offered one major obstacle after another. With a camera in nearly every boat, director Wolbach pieces together the story of the race — its tragedies and triumphs — and assembles a portrait of perseverance in the most extreme circumstances. (DW)

Saturday, Mar. 3, 10pm; Ragtag
Sunday, Mar. 4, 3pm; Ragtag

In person: director Luke Wolbach

Documentary begins when fiction leaves the scene. Rarely in filmmaking does the theory meet the practice, but in the case of the powerful, gritty Running Stumbled, director John Maringouin manages to take us into the heart of the matter in a dramatic exploration of family, life, art, drugs, murder, love, and legacy. After a 25-year absence, Maringouin the prodigal son returns from Hollywood to Terrytown, Louisiana. Placed in the center of an emotional battle, he films an intimate, frank and strange portrait about the complex relationship between his estranged father, Dadaist painter Johnny Roe Jr., and Roe’s self-destructive common-law wife, Virgie Marie Pennoui. Johnny is a New Orleans legend, known for being a career heroin user, a street-fighting pimp, and an accused murder. He also once tried to kill his son. Running Stumbled is a dark, Southern Gothic fable, as dramatic as it is cautionary, enveloped in an atmosphere that has its main characters chasing demons and pursued by death. (PW)

Friday, Mar. 2, 10:30pm; Ragtag

In our ongoing efforts to bring you, the T/F faithful, the freshest and the best films, we’re going super-stealth in ’07. You can’t read about this film online, but you do have our word that it’s worth your while.

Plays with 7 Minutes (dir. Shannon O’Rourke; 10 min.) — An insider’s look at the oldest profession. Women who love it, put up with it, and make their living from it.

Sunday, Mar. 4, 12:30pm; Ragtag

In our ongoing efforts to bring you, the T/F faithful, the freshest and the best films, we’re going super-stealth in ’07. You can’t read about this film online, but you do have our word that it’s worth your while.

Sunday, Mar. 4, 10:30am; Missouri Theatre

In person: director and stars

In our ongoing efforts to bring you, the T/F faithful, the freshest and the best films, we’re going super-stealth in ’07. You can’t read about this film anywhere, but you have our word that it’s worth your while.

Thursday, Mar. 1, 9:45pm; Ragtag
Saturday, Mar. 3, 7:30pm; Ragtag

In person: the director

OPENING NIGHT FILM

Some of the footage may be familiar, even iconic, but the story of Apollo 11 has never been told like this. Award-winning director David Sington builds an extraordinary behind-the-scenes history of the astronauts that first visited the moon, weaving together pristine footage (some discovered in NASA’s cold storage) and interviews with key members of the Apollo program. The result injects a new sense of wonder into one of humankind’s great achievements, following the story from John F. Kennedy’s seemingly impossible directive — to put a man on the moon in less than ten years — through the thrilling, terrifying moments as the lunar module approaches its ghostly destination. Winner of the Audience Award at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival, In the Shadow of the Moon salutes America’s unmatched can-do spirit and celebrates the thirst for knowledge and adventure that lives inside each of us. (JS)

Friday, Mar. 2, 7:30pm; Missouri Theatre

In person: director David Sington

Every documentary filmmaker has family and friends who say, “You should make a film about….” In Cohen’s case, it was his 82-year-old father who wanted to tell the story of his life. Cohen wasn’t interested. But eventually, he was prodded to attend a reunion of the “Jewish Brigade” who fought the Nazis in WWII. All seemed typical (training in Libya, fighting in Italy) until he heard the men talk of their postwar stay in the Netherlands and the “souvenirs” they’d left behind. Huh? His father explains that he too had had Dutch girlfriends and that Cohen might have some half-siblings in northern Europe. And suddenly, there was a movie. Like a father-son Hope/Crosby duo, the two hopped in a car and began the trek from Israel to Holland. They argue, they feud and, ultimately, they grow closer. With a fine wit and quick pacing, Cohen dodges the maudlin and the sentimental and finds real emotional grit in this mad search for his father’s past. (DW)

Plays with A Short History of Sweet Potato Pie (dir: Nina Gilden Seavey; 17 min.) — Pearl Mallory cooks lovingly made sweet potato pies at a retirement home, and residents wax rhapsodic.

Thursday, Mar. 1, 7:15pm; Ragtag
Saturday, Mar. 3, 3pm; Forrest Theater

In person: co-director Shahar Cohen; Halil Efrat

In overcrowded Mexico City, pollution, corruption, and injustice spiral out of control. But wait, help is on the way! Superheroes burst upon the scene to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. Meet five real-life masked Lucha Libre wrestlers who might have leapt out of a progressive avenger comic book: they are thoughtful organizers and they are adept at flipping an opponent onto the mat. While this is fantastic material, our skepticism melts as Torres’ street-level film brings us to the front lines: Super Barrio helps tenants fight evictions, Super Animal single-handedly challenges the entrenched bull-fighting culture, Ecologista Universal takes his crusade against overpackaging to the checkout line, and Super Gay commandeers a city park to fight gay bashing. (PS)

Plays with Blue Karma Tiger (dir. Mia Hulterstam and Cecilia Actis; 12 min.) — Free to let their guard down in an animated documentary about them, Swedish grafitti girls show how they leave their mark on walls, tunnels and trains.

Saturday, Mar. 3, 12:30pm; Forrest Theater

In person: director Arturo Perez Torres

SNEAK PREVIEW

A brand-new True/False initiative, the True Life Fund is our attempt to give something back to those who appear in front of the camera. When we saw this film, we knew we’d found the perfect first recipients. This dramatic and uplifting doc, the audience favorite at the IDFA fest in Amsterdam, shows the results of the devastating AIDS epidemic in Africa through the story of a 12-year-old girl, Slindile, who lives at the Agape Orphanage in KwazaZulu Natal. The children at the orphanage form a choir and use singing to raise money and lift their spirits. The film follows the choir’s successes and Slindile’s story as her elder brother falls gravely ill. The Agape Orphanage will be the first recipient of our new True Life Fund, in which we solicit audience donations (with matching funds from other groups) to give to the subjects of one film each year. Documentaries can create change! (DW)

Saturday, Mar. 3, 3:30pm; Missouri Theatre

Meeting Brett Morgen in person, it’s hard not to draw comparisons to his most famous film subjects. Like Robert Evans or Abbie Hoffman, Brett is an animated speaker, whose ideas seem to well up and spill out as fast as he can talk. But Brett is also an extremely thoughtful observer and critic of contemporary culture. His breadth of subjects — from a small-town high school basketball team to the Yippee revolution — is impressive, and his kick-out-the-jams style means that he’s never afraid to tell you where he stands. Join us as we present him with the 2007 True Vision Award. Brett will show clips from work, old and new, and give behind-the-scenes commentary on his films. This is one show-and-tell presentation that is not to be missed.

Saturday, Mar. 3, 1pm; Blue Note

In person: award recipient Brett Morgen

“You have lost your parents, your sisters and brothers,” the teacher tells the students. “You carry scars from fighting. But the story doesn’t end there.” Indeed, it doesn’t. From a refugee camp in Uganda, the young survivors of a horrific bout of ethnic cleansing dance their way to Kampala, the country’s capital, for a national competition. Sean and Andrea Nix Fine’s fluid, impressionistic style allows the tragic stories of these children and their displaced, mourning communities to unfold. But by film’s end, the children have, at least for the moment, transformed grief into art, as they compete with more than 300 other schools in nine performance categories. War Dance, which won a Best Director award at Sundance, is an indelible addition to the triumph-of-the-spirit genre, a haunting, gorgeous, true-life tale of inspiration, fortitude and the redemptive joy of music and movement. (JS)

Friday, Mar. 2, 7pm; Forrest Theater

In person: directors Andrea Nix Fine and Sean Fine

Each year, men from the Middle East, North Africa, and Eastern Europe make their ways to the wealthy countries of Western Europe. There the jobs and security they had hoped for are nowhere to be found. Instead, they lead furtive, desperate lives, sleeping in boxes, bathing in convenience store bathrooms and, often, selling their bodies for money. Director Ulmer has a cinematographer’s eye and a masterful sense of mise-en-scene. Moving smoothly from vérité street scenes to individual portraits, we come to know these men, feel their dilemmas and frustrations, and in the end, wish them the best — though all facts make this seem unlikely. It’s bleak truth, but as told by Ulmer, there is at least poetry and dignity in the bleakness. (DW) Sponsored by the European Union Center at the University of Missouri-Columbia.

Saturday, Mar. 3, 2:30pm; Ragtag

In person: director Bruno Ulmer

Labor is an inevitable part of our lives. For some it’s an enjoyable and fulfilling endeavor, for others a difficult and unpleasant necessity. While not romanticizing this fact of life, it is possible to find beauty in the routines that people perform. These filmmakers have crafted elegant portraits of their subjects’ labor, whether it’s the work they do day in and day out or the reasons behind it. Vángelo Manzón (Andréas Lennartsson, 8 min.) is a portrait of an Argentinian man who has made bricks all of his life. Shit and Chicks (Kees van der Geest, 10 min.) documents, with gentle restraint, a traditional method of feeding chickens in Ghana. As the fishing boats close in on the tuna in El Cerco (Ricardo Íscar/Nacho Martin, 12 min), the tension escalates until the men capture their prizes. In Family Vilakati (Xanthe Hamilton, 10 min.), the focus is on one young man’s desire to support his family of sisters so that they may have a better life. Imran Uddin gave up his “modern” life in advertising to learn the business of his father’s halal butcher shop, truly A Son’s Sacrifice (Yoni Brook, 26 min.). (KLC)

Saturday, Mar. 3, 10am; Ragtag

In person: director Yoni Brook and producer Musa Syeed, director Kees van der Geest, and director Xanthe Hamilton

Not long after a Seattle man was dropped off at a hospital with a perforated colon, word spread through the region: his death was due to intercourse with a horse. The man’s strange demise provided talk-show gabbers including Rush Limbaugh with plenty of sensational material, but Robinson Devor, making his documentary debut after directing two acclaimed feature films, takes the opposite approach. His Zoo is a visionary, feature-length, nonfiction poem that uses re-enactments based on testimony from the man’s friends, the owner of the farm that hosted “zoophile” parties, a veterinarian that adopted the horse and a policeman who was on the scene. Devor’s Rashomonic approach makes Zoo a dazzling and disorienting portrait of a tiny subculture that is all the more unsettling for being almost entirely non-graphic. Simultaneously adventurous in form and classical in its themes, this is an American tragedy for a new millennium. (JS)

Plays with Joe No Love (dir: Chris Wicha; 10 min.) — Joe is 14. Outspoken and hyper-smart, he sees what’s happening to the other kids at his middle school and wants no part of it. Joe doesn’t believe in love, and this is his platform. Excerpted from the forthcoming This American Life TV show.

Friday, Mar. 2, 8pm; Ragtag
Sunday, Mar. 4, 5:30pm; Ragtag

In person: director Robinson Devor and screenwriter Charles Mudede

An insider’s look at the oldest profession. Women who love it, put up with it and make their living from it. Plays with Secret Screening (Blue).

An unreliable history of our country, 30 seconds at a time. Made on a digital still camera by local 16-year-old Chris Boeckmann. Plays with American Shopper.

New condominium complexes and other businesses in Southern California try to get a leg up on the competition, and the vast subculture of sign twirlers are thus in demand. Plays with Kamp Katrina.

In rural China, people give unsafe blood donations, causing HIV infection and orphaned children. Plays as part of Oscar-nominated doc shorts.

Free to let their guard down in an animated documentary about them, Swedish grafitti girls show how they leave their mark on walls, tunnels and trains. Plays with Super Amigos.

Searching Cuba for a Puerto Rican revolutionary who vanished without a trace. Plays with Off the Grid: Life on the Mesa.

At Creativity Explored, a drop-in art center for adults with developmental disabilities, art is a fact of life. In this well-crafted observation, the camera is a comfortable friend and the art and artists are just as serious and talented as any anywhere. Plays with Miss Navajo.

As the fishing boats close in on the tuna, the tension escalates until the men capture their prizes. Plays as part of the Working Title shorts program.

The focus is on one young man’s desire to support his family of sisters so that they may have a better life. Plays as part of the Working Title shorts program.

Dressed in their traditional long, layered skirts, a group of Bolivian women become Lucha Libre wrestlers every Sunday. Plays as part of the Night Mail shorts program.

A gorgeous magic-hour look at rickshaw drivers waiting in a park in Dhaka, India, and who are removed from the cacophony of the city. Plays as part of the Night Mail shorts program.

Animated freight-train hopping. Plays as part of the Night Mail shorts program.

Joe is 14. Outspoken and hyper-smart, he sees what’s happening to the other kids at his middle school and wants no part of it. Joe doesn’t believe in love, and this is his platform. Excerpted from the forthcoming This American Life TV show. Plays with Zoo.

A story about debt, fear and a phone that won’t stop ringing. Plays as part of the Night Mail shorts program.

Brener shows a glimpse of the Senegalese tradition of dying women’s gums black. Plays as part of the I Am a Map shorts program.

A hypnotic and highly stylized portrait of midway motorbike riders. Plays with Manda Bala.

With a live original soundtrack by Ken Thomson, New York avant-jazz vikings Gutbucket breathe new life into this classic documentary about the British mail train. Plays as part of the Night Mail shorts program.

A five-minute tone poem about Trojan Nuclear Power Plant, punctuated by a doozy of a climax. Soundtrack by Sam Coomes of Quasi and cinematography by Eric Edwards, a long-time collaborator of Gus Van Sant. Plays with The Monastery.

Central America’s largest and most toxic garbage dump in Guatemala City hosts thousands of adults and children who have been living, eating and working there over the last 60 years. Plays as part of Oscar-nominated doc shorts.

Talented 17-year-old artists spend a week in a mentorship project with inspiring and well-known artists. Plays as part of Oscar-nominated doc shorts.

In 2003, James Longley went to Iraq to document a country under occupation, and emerged with the stunning Iraq in Fragments. Sari’s Mother is a missing chapter that tells the story of a poor family living south of Baghdad, and how one courageous mother struggles to get help for a sick child in the shattered healthcare system. Plays with Enemies of Happiness.

Three visually impaired women share their experiences in this evocative short film. Plays as part of the I Am a Map shorts program.

Documents, with gentle restraint, a traditional method of feeding chickens in Ghana. Plays as part of the Working Title shorts program.

Pearl Mallory cooks lovingly made sweet potato pies at a retirement home, and residents wax rhapsodic. Plays with Souvenirs.

Imran Uddin gave up his “modern” life in advertising to learn the business of his father’s halal butcher shop. Plays as part of the Working Title shorts program.

Richards follows the painful yet joyous journey of Martin Thomas, a man attempting to stop his stammer. Plays as part of the I Am a Map shorts program.

The story of pianist Leon Fleisher, who lost his ability to play with his right hand at the height of his career. Plays as part of Oscar-nominated doc shorts.

Aitken uses a creative and evocative narrative style to tell the story of one woman’s journey from Vietnam to London in. Plays as part of the I Am a Map shorts program.

A portrait of an Argentinian man who has made bricks all of his life. Plays as part of the Working Title shorts program.