The True/False Podcast

True/False 2022 Films Preview

A chat with True/False Film Festival programmers' about the newly announced slate of films for this year's festival.

Revisiting Weirdness with Lance Oppenheim

Oscillation with Khalik Allah (I WALK ON WATER) and Ursula Liang (DOWN A DARK STAIRWELL)

In this episode of the True/False Podcast: a conversation from last year's festival between filmmakers Ursula Liang and Khalik Allah. Both were at True/False to show their latest features. Liang's film Down a Dark Stairwell documents the effects of a police shooting of an unarmed Black man. Allah's film I Walk on Water pushes the boundaries of the filmmakers' relationship with those they document.

Intimacy with Rikkí Wright (A SONG ABOUT LOVE)

This week, we’re continuing our dispatches from True/False 2020 with a conversation between artist and filmmaker Rikkí Wright and programmer Jeanelle Augustin. Wright’s work is often deeply personal and offers commentary on how she interacts with and understands the world around her. “A Song About Love,” Wright's latest short film, showed ahead of The Giverny Document, and is a dreamy mix of vibrant, colorful images and archival material. As she told Jeanelle, Wright’s work started as a way t...

2021 Films Preview with Angela Catalano and Amir George

Many things about this year's True/False Film Festival have changed, but one that hasn't is our annual programmer preview. This year, programmers Angela Catalano and Amir George join the podcast to preview some of the films coming to this year's outdoor fest, which starts May 5. Angela and Amir preview Questlove's directorial debut Summer of Soul, Pete Nicks's Homeroom, and a number of other films and events fest-goers can look forward to.

Retaining Humanity with David France and Maxim Lapunov (WELCOME TO CHECHNYA)

We continue our dispatches from last year's festival with the final True/False Podcast episode recorded in-studio during 2020. The guests were filmmaker David France and Maxim Lapunov, who was imprisoned and tortured as part of the Chechen government's persecution of its LGBTQ community. Lapunov and the subjects of France's 2020 film, Welcome to Chechnya were the recipients of the True Life Fund, the festival's philanthropic effort which provides monetary support to those documented in the se...

Dimensions with Steve James and Meredith Zielke

Every year during the festival, True/False organizes field sessions: conversations between filmmakers about their films, experiences, and anything else that interests them. In this week's episode of the True/False Podcast, we’ll be listening in on one such conversation between filmmakers Meredith Zielke and Steve James. Zielke is an award-winning filmmaker and editor who co-directed A Machine To Live In, an impressionistic exploration of Brazil’s peculiar capital city that showed at True/Fals...

'Objectivity' with Elegance Bratton (PIER KIDS)

Nonfiction filmmakers often end up with a lot more material than they could ever use. That's something Elegance Bratton ran into making his debut feature, Pier Kids. The film portrays life in New York for gay and transgender youth living on the Christopher Street Pier. Producing the film involved capturing all kinds of people’s stories over the course of many years in order to portray Bratton’s own experiences with homelessness. Bratton spoke with True/False programmer Amir George.

Fashioning A Film Festival Amid The Pandemic: Part Two

The 2021 True/False Film Festival will look completely different from any previous fest. In the interest of social distancing and safety, all of the films will screen outdoors, at Stephens Lake Park in the fest's hometown of Columbia, Missouri. The True/False Podcast spoke with fest organizers to explain what festival-goers can expect at the new venue, and how it's tried to keep some vestiges of normalcy from festivals past.

Fashioning A Film Festival Amid The Pandemic: Part One

The first confirmed case of COVID-19 in Missouri was announced on March 7. That was day two of last year's True/False Film Festival. During the festival, South by Southwest — one of the biggest film festivals in the world — announced it was canceling its March dates, and the world of film festivals plunged into a year of uncertainty. Now, the True/False Film Festival is returning, with a different look, a different size and a very different venue. The True/False Podcast sat down with festival...

New Season Announcement, And Hindsight Series Preview!

It's been a long break, but the True/False Podcast is coming back, and soon! Before the new season starts in earnest on March 17, though, we wanted to preview True/False's online film retrospective called Hindsight. The series runs over eight weeks leading up to this year's festival, and it features films from True/False's past. Virtual attendees can buy passes and tickets to the series on the True/False website to gain access to the films, as well as discussion questions and prompts to accom...

Programming Update

Hi all — as you're probably aware, we are in the midst of a global pandemic. What that means for us at KBIA is all our time is taken up covering what that looks like on the ground here. In light of that, this week's episode is being postponed. We'll be back next week with filmmaker and journalist David France, director of "Welcome to Chechnya," and Maxim Lapunov, one of the subjects of that film. Thank you for your patience, and stay safe: wash your hands, self-isolate as much as possible, an...

Weirdness with Lance Oppenheim (SOME KIND OF HEAVEN)

In this week’s episode, True/False Programmer Jeanelle Augustin talks with filmmaker Lance Oppenheim about his latest documentary, “Some Kind of Heaven." In the film, Oppenheim tells the story of residents at The Villages, in Florida - the country’s largest retirement community. The Villages — singular — is home to more than 100,000 retirees, and boasts 12 golf courses, three libraries, and no residents under 55. The rows of houses and town squares are designed to evoke an American yesteryear...

Geography with Brett Story (THE HOTTEST AUGUST)

Climate change is an issue so broad and pervasive it is easy to abstract. It looms large over so many aspects of life it can feel less like a subject to explore, and more like a mood or a feeling, a doom permeating aspects of every story told in the 20th century. But instead of approaching it from a distance, or preparing a sanitized lecture, in her newest film The Hottest August, filmmaker and True/False alum Brett Story looks for the climate crisis’s many intersections, with labor, with cap...

Perception with Sophy Romvari (PUMPKIN MOVIE)

A film can never exactly capture how we experience a moment, or time passing, but it can evoke those sensations through its structure or editing or cinematography. In this week’s episode, we talk with a filmmaker whose films reflect that conflict — True/False alum Sophy Romvari. She’s a Toronto-based filmmaker who has primarily worked in the world of non-fiction shorts, including “Pumpkin Movie,” which screened at True/False 2018.

True/False 2020 Films Preview

On this week's episode, we're previewing some of the films coming to True/False this year, with festival programmers Jeanelle Augustin, Chris Boeckmann and Amir George. The line-up includes a whopping 38 feature films, 26 shorts and multiple repertory programs. Jeanelle, Chris and Amir talk us through some of this year's world premieres, potential crowd-pleasers and can't miss screenings.

Rejection with Zia Anger (MY FIRST FILM)

Having your work rejected is part and parcel of being a filmmaker, be it when submitting to festivals, applying for funding, trying to sell a film or get distribution. But it can be hard to separate self worth from work, or to reconcile the reality of the industry with personal beliefs and values. These are all issues filmmaker and artist Zia Anger touches on in her multi-media performance "My First Film." Anger sat down with us to talk about how the show, which traces the production of a "fa...

Engagement with Robert Greene (BISBEE '17)

In the world of nonfiction filmmaking, the idea of "engagement" is often raised as a key part of the process. How does a film engage the audience, or with its subjects, what conversations does it start, or augment? For Robert Greene, whose film "Bisbee '17" screened at the 2018 True/False Film Festival, engagement offers an opportunity to counter the exploitative aspect of documentary filmmaking. And in the case of "Bisbee '17" it meant going back to the eponymous town year after year to cont...

Replay: Politics Ditto... Ditto

The next season of the True/False Podcast doesn't start up for a few more months still, but we thought it was a good time to re-feature an episode from last season. The Edge of Democracy, which screened at this year's festival, is now streaming on Netflix, so we're bringing back our episode with the film's director, Petra Costa.

Bumpers with Chelsea Myers

Bumpers are the short films that play before screenings at festivals. True/False has different bumpers for each day of the festival, each related to that year's theme. For this episode of the True/False Podcast, Allison Coffelt sat down with Chelsea Myers, of Tiny Attic Productions, which produced the bumpers for this year's festival.

Replay: Voice with Deborah Stratman

In this archived edition of the True False podcast, we revisit a conversation with film-maker Deborah Stratman about the power of voice in her film "The Illinois Parables."

Shorts with Charlie Lyne (LASTING MARKS)

Sometimes, documentary shorts can be seen as stepping stones for filmmakers who want to direct feature-length films, or as afterthoughts on a festival program. But, given their lower costs and shorter runtimes, shorts can allow for a wealth of experimentation, with narrative and format, that features couldn't sustain. On this episode of the True/False Podcast, filmmaker Charlie Lyne sits down to discuss the differences between the two forms, and the unique and varied offerings short-form film...

Politics Ditto

Figuring out how to tell large-scale stories that affect millions of people can be a daunting task for any filmmaker. Sometimes, personal experience is the most effective way in. In this conversation, taken from the Field Session "Politics Ditto," from this year's festival, directors Nanfu Wang (One Child Nation) and Petra Costa (The Edge of Democracy) talk about how they interwove the personal and the political in their films.

Within Reason

Anand Patwardhan is a filmmaker who has been making documentaries on the socio-political reality of India for over four decades. His latest film, a four-hour and twenty-minute epic titled "Reason," chronicles India's shift from secular democracy toward Hindu fundamentalism and was shown at this year's True/False Film Fest. Although audiences in Columbia were able to see the film, Patwardhan has been fighting to show it in India, where he has been stymied by government censorship. Patwardhan s...

The Journey with Emelie Mahdavian

Emelie Mahdavian is the writer, editor and producer of this year's True Life Fund recipient "Midnight Traveler," showing at True False 2019. The film is directed by film-maker Hassan Fazili, who documented his own family's journey from Afghanistan as they fled the Taliban. Fazili shot the entire film on three cell phones. In this conversation, host Allison Coffelt talks with Mahdavian about the film's revelations on the asylum process, the nature of family and the elusiveness of happy endings.

Narration with Miko Revereza (NO DATA PLAN)

In his first feature film, “No data plan,” True/False alum Miko Revereza eschews a faceless off-screen narrator in favor of a voiceless, subtitled one, along with interviews of friends and family. “No data plan” reinvents the road trip movie as a film where the bulk of the action happens off-screen.

Happenings with Dora Garcia (SEGUNDA VEZ)

In this episode, we’ll be listening to a conversation between True/False’s Paul Sturtz and Dora Garcia, director of the film “ Segunda Vez ." The staged documentary is anchored in the “happenings” - which are part performance art pieces, part social experiments - of Argentinian theorist and psychoanalyst Oscar Masotta. He was influential in morphing the artistic landscape of Buenos Aires in the 1960s, and brought the theories of French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan to the Spanish-speaking world...

True/False 2019 Films Preview

On this episode, we’re previewing this year’s films and filmmakers with three True/False programmers, Chris Boeckmann, Amir George and Abby Sun. This year’s True/False film line-up includes 36 new nonfiction films, 5 repertory films, and 18 new shorts. With so many films, we’ve asked Chris, Amir and Abby to talk us through some titles.

Musicality with Morgan Neville

WIth upbeat and affirmational songs like “It’s Such a Good Feeling,” and “It’s You I Like,” music was at the heart of Mister Rogers’ message, and how he expressed his worldview. It’s fitting, then, that music plays a key part in Academy Award Winner Morgan Neville’s Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, which screened at True/False 2018. The film explores Rogers’ life and work, but it’s more than a biopic: the film privileges Fred Rogers’ ideas over his personal history, and asks its viewers to consider...

Rough Cut (Part 2)

Directors Agnieszka Zwiefka and Daniel Hymanson attended the 2018 Rough Cut Retreat; where they got feedback on early versions of their films. We checked in with them about 6 months later to get an intimate view of the filmmaking process in real time. In this episode, we’ll be talking about the responsibility a filmmaker has to their audience, and to their subjects.

Rough Cut (Part 1)

Directors Mo Scarpelli, Hannah Jayanti and Elizabeth Lo all attended the 2018 Rough Cut Retreat; where they got feedback on early versions of their films. We checked in with them about 6 months later to get an intimate view of the filmmaking process in real time. In this episode, we’ll be talking about the cutting room floor. How do you decide what to exclude? How do you edit to re-frame your story? And what happens when you realize you don’t have enough?

Following the Money, With Kimberly Reed

Kimberly Reed thought campaign finance was too complex for a documentary. But that was before her home state of Montana began fighting back against anonymous money. Allison Coffelt talks with Director Kimberly Reed about the making of a true-life political thriller, on this episode of the True/False podcast.

Reflect

Directors Kim Hopkins (VOICES OF THE SEA) , Erick Stoll and Chase Whiteside (AMERICA) spent significant time with their subjects, close-knit families in Cuba and Mexico, respectively. Listen in on these three as they consider the many things they have in common during their Field Session at True/False 2018.

Rejoice

Over years of editing, both Leilah Weinraub (SHAKEDOWN) and RaMell Ross (HALE COUNTY THIS MORNING, THIS EVENING) found themselves migrating away from conventional cinematic languages. In a conversation during True/False 2018 they discussed how they are both seeking to reshape documentary grammar and expand the way films portray black life.

Reconstruct

Fellipe Barbosa built his latest film ( GABRIEL AND THE MOUNTAIN) around the remnants of his friend Gabriel's life, from his photographs to excerpts of his diary. Matt Holzman’s podcast, KCRW’s The Document, extracts new audio stories from the footage of documentary films. Fellipe and Matt spoke about sifting fresh work out of raw material during their Field Session at True/False 2018.

Family with Laura Bari (PRIMAS)

Director Laura Bari discusses the intimate, emotional and uncomfortable depictions of her own family in her film PRIMAS. The film is the True Life Fund selection for True/False 2018. Money raised by the Fund will benefit Bari's nieces who are the subjects of the film.

Friendship with Sandi Tan (SHIRKERS)

Director Sandi Tan discusses her complicated relationships with a childhood "frenemy" and the middle-aged mentor with whom they made a film in Singapore in 1992. Tan's documentary SHIRKERS explores why that film was never released. It is playing this year at True/False 2018.