The Great Wall is True/False’s outdoor movie screen: the massive, Shakespeare’s-facing wall of the Picturehouse Theater (aka the Missouri United Methodist Church). Join us for this free walk-up cinema on Friday and Saturday nights of the Fest from 7 – 11 pm. This year, we will be celebrating the life and work of the renegade … Continued
The Neither/Nor series is an ongoing project to map the history (and present) of “chimeric” cinema, adventurous filmmaking that defies classification as either fiction or nonfiction. Every year True/False will partner with a visiting film critic who will present four films and produce a limited-edition monograph featuring essays and interviews. In the 2014 edition, esteemed … Continued
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has awarded a three-year, $75,000 grant to the True/False. The funds will help produce our Neither/Nor series, which celebrates “chimeric” works that straddle the line between fiction and nonfiction. Being recognized by the Academy in such a significant way is one of the greatest milestones in our … Continued
This week the film world lost the great Québécoise director Michel Brault, an important pioneer in the observational “direct cinema” movement that fundamentally transformed documentary film. Catherine Perreault at the National Film Board of Canada offers a detailed appreciation of his life and works, including three selections from his oeuvre available streaming as part of … Continued
One of the most unforgettable films ever to screen at True/False was our 2011 True Life Fund selection, The Interrupters. Steve James’s documentary introduced us to violence interrupters working in the troubled streets of Chicago. These interrupters are part of a program created by epidemiologist Gary Slutkin called Ceasefire (now renamed Cure Violence), based on … Continued
Arthur Lipsett transformed literal trash into cinematic treasure. Working at the National Film Board of Canada during the 1960s, he wove bits of discarded audio and film into unforgettable collages. The four films embedded below through the NFB archive, all less than 13 minutes in length, inaugurated his tragically short career. They continue to delight, confound … Continued
Kirby Dick was the recipient of True/False’s True Vision Award in 2006, and for good reason: His interests in subjectivity and institutional corruption have rendered him one of the most prominent auteurs of the contemporary American doc scene. Dick began his career by chronicling “the pained, the freakish and the inexplicable that exists on the margins of everyday … Continued
We are excited to announce the first edition of Neither/Nor, a new annual collaboration with our other half, Ragtag Cinema. This series celebrates the art of film scholarship, while offering a historical overview of “chimeras”—films straddling the line between fiction and non-fiction. Every year a film critic will select and present four films. In the … Continued
IDFA, the world’s biggest and most prestigious documentary film festival, is now underway in Amsterdam. IDFA has always been an important event on the True/False calendar, responsible for significant discoveries such as Last Train Home, Burma VJ, Afghan Star and Family Instinct. This year T/F co-director Paul Sturtz and associate programmer Chris Boeckmann have made the journey … Continued
Chris Marker, the enigmatic filmmaker, writer, photographer, multimedia artist and philosopher, died this summer in Paris on his 91st birthday. A member of the French Resistance during World War Two, Marker’s filmmaking career began in the 1950s as part of Paris’s Left Bank Film movement and ended just before his death with strange video experiments … Continued
