True/False 2014 has come and gone. The four days always seem to fly by like a heady whirlwind, leaving us dizzy and happy with too many experiences. We hope that you too left T/F 2014 with a wealth of ideas and impressions, enough to unpack and reinterpret throughout the months until we all come together again.

Sunday was yet another day stuffed to the brim with True/False. We brushed off a bit of snow and ice and pressed ahead with a plethora of screenings and events. Below we’ll recap just a few of the amazing things that happened on the final day of True/False 2014.

For us in the middle of the Fest, aiming a year’s worth of brainstorming, planning and production at just four days makes for an unusual feeling. It may be similar to what filmmakers experience while screening their films at T/F, watching as years of their life and work are condensed into mere minutes of images projected on a screen. For this reason, it’s more than fitting that the final installment of Jarred Alterman’s Magic/Realism focuses the role of hard-earned craft in the art of stage magic. “You may spend ten hours on something that takes thirty seconds”, magician Steve Ferris remarks. “But for those thirty seconds, you’re doing the impossible.”

At the Odd Fellows Lodge, Sunday began with the Weird Wake-Up, a breakfast where Fest-goers wipe the sleep from their eyes and refuel their bodies for the home stretch.

After chowing down, the crowd headed into the theater for Dusty Stacks of Mom, experimental animator Jodie Mack’s journey through the clutter left in her mom’s out-of-business poster shop. Mack sang her reimagined and relyriced version of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon live from the back of the theater as a cascade of images danced across the screen. When the performance ended, the crowd expressed their appreciation with a roaring ovation. A giddy Mack explained how she sees the piece as being in part about culture’s continual reappropriation of ubiquitous images, making the pairing with Floyd’s iconic album apropos.

At the Missouri Theatre, Sunday afternoon featured a screening of Happy Valley, the new film from this year’s True Vision Award honoree, Amir Bar-Lev. This work is a thoughtful examination of the culture surrounding Penn State football in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky sexual abuse scandal. On stage after the film, Bar-Lev talked about how we all use narratives to construct an identity and what happens when a whole town is forced to reexamine how it sees itself.

Early in the afternoon,  Samuel James and Les Trois Coups played a raucous free show before a packed house at Sparky’s Homemade Ice Cream, one of downtown CoMo’s hippest hang-outs.

The Fest concluded with a variety of events at our three biggest venues. At the Missouri Theatre, a crowd gathered to watch The Overnighters, which chronicles the startling consequences when a North Dakota pastor allows homeless men to sleep in his church. After the film, director Jesse Moss talked about adding a surprising final revelation to a work he thought was already near completion.

photo by Roxi Pop

At the Vimeo Theater at The Blue Note, the Racso Party gave T/F attendees a chance to check-in on a very prestigious ceremony where movie types give each other small, but surprisingly heavy statues.

And at Jesse Auditorium, our official closing night film was a one time only screening of a truly singular work. Director Richard Linklater’s Boyhood is a work of fiction, depicting an adolescence in 21st century Texas from age 5 to 17. The film’s remarkable 12-year production allows you to see the actors grow and change along with their characters. After a rapturous 162-minutes of cinema, Fest co-director David Wilson was joined on stage by producer Cathleen Sutherland and star Ellar Coltrane, who spent his own boyhood playing the film’s main character, Mason. Coltrane spoke about collaborating each year with Linklater on the screenplay, a process which caused him to grow closer to closer to Mason. He also talked about his real relationship with his on-screen father Ethan Hawke.

Back at the Missouri Theatre we all huddled together in the lobby for the always bittersweet Busker’s Last Stand. The Schlafly flowed as the music opened with supergroup Chimney Choir/Les Trois Coups/Raya Brass Band along with rotating, quickfire performances by Toughcats and Yes Ma’am.

For those of us who stayed up way too late, comedian Dave Hill hosted the first ever edition of Toasted at Cafe Berlin. This late-night talk show featuring buzzed conversations with T/F filmmakers alongside musical performances. In the appropriately raw excerpt below, Dave chats with Kitty Green of Ukraine is Not a Brothel and Maxim Pozdorovkin of The Notorious Mr. Bout ahead of a performance by Yes Ma’am.

The final video from Tiny Attic focuses on the many invisible hands that build the fantastical world of the Fest. We go on a short tour of Neon Treehouse and Taylor Ross constructions, with music provided by Prahlad, MNDR and James Cathcart’s SPACE IS THE PLACE.

Try as we might, there’s just no way to express the gratitude we feel for the dedicated staff, volunteers, sponsors, guests and patrons who continue to make this whole thing possible. What do you say we do it all again next year? True/False returns March 5-8, 2015!