{"id":17984,"date":"2022-03-07T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-03-07T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/?p=17984"},"modified":"2024-03-02T21:13:02","modified_gmt":"2024-03-03T05:13:02","slug":"marshall-shaffers-true-false-2022-diary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/marshall-shaffers-true-false-2022-diary\/","title":{"rendered":"Marshall Shaffer\u2019s True\/False 2022 Diary"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Q&A for the world premiere of After Sherman<\/em> at the True\/False Film Festival in Columbia, MO concluded in an unusual way \u2013 mercifully, not with a question that was more a comment. One of the film\u2019s producers whispered into the microphone, \u201cWe\u2019re going to go to the Broadway Brewery, if anybody wants to join.\u201d For this first-time festgoer, the moment set the stage for a cordial and casual weekend to come. True\/False actually lives up to that much-ballyhooed promise of cinematic community that most festivals merely claim they foster. (Cough<\/em>, Telluride.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As chronicled by Crooked Marquee<\/em>\u2019s own Abby Olcese back in March 2020<\/a>, True\/False hosted one of the last major film events of the Before COVID Times. Most seasoned T\/F veterans agreed that masks and proof of vaccination excepting, 2022\u2019s edition restored the vitality of the way things once were \u2013 which, to the newly initiated, felt like the kind of warm collision of chance and collegiality that has been absent from the circuit for far too long. In a town of 120,000 with a surplus of Midwest Nice, True\/False is the kind of environment where the volunteers remember your name and face, where the person you have a conversation on the street with the person behind you in line yesterday, and where people excitedly advocate for their new discovery rather than merely pontificating about them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

True\/False still feels like a contained bubble of sorts \u2013 all it takes is a few tipsy Mizzou students stumbling down the sidewalk where you\u2019re civilly queuing for sophisticated cinema to remind you the event is not the center of the universe. But there was also something refreshing about knowing there were documentary enthusiasts who weren\u2019t<\/em> spending all weekend fuming on Twitter about that woefully ahistorical piece of Netflix spon-con<\/a> about the renaissance of non-fiction film. (Not that there\u2019s anything wrong with that.) It\u2019s an encouraging testament to how smart programming and clever event planning can cultivate a base of dependable moviegoers apart from extremely online communities or major metropolitan area dwellers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the True\/False festival ecosystem, from organizers to attendees, seemed to acknowledge just how precious a thing they have here. There\u2019s a real sense of patronage, most notably for the musicians whose sets serve as preludes to the main entertainment. Festival volunteers pass around a literal hat to collect contributions for the artists, but if someone isn\u2019t carrying cash, they can\u2019t miss their Venmo handles posted prominently at the front of the theater.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That financial support reached beyond artists and extended to subjects, too. A title card before Sr\u0111an Kova\u010devi\u0107\u2019s Factory to the Workers<\/em> explained that the film was produced under an agreement to share profits between the factory employees in front of the camera and the filmmaking team behind it. For a film about the struggle to find a sustainable model of profitable self-governance within a Croatian worksite, the model made for an impressive synergy \u2013 not to mention a reminder that sometimes we need art to help us achieve what eludes us in reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The festival does its part, too, for documentaries tasteful enough to spare us a cloying call-to-action-laden concluding title card. The festival\u2019s True Life Fund benefits the subjects of a film whose need for support and visibility extends beyond the release of a film. For 2022, that was the Indigenous Brazilian tribe of the Uru-eu-wau-wau as chronicled in The Territory. <\/em>Their fight to protect their rainforests from Bolsanaro-led deforestation is a righteous crusade that takes on the tenor of a political thriller, pulse-pounding synth score and all. Their struggle to maintain sovereignty inherently resonates with anyone who cares about, oh, the future of the planets. But nothing won over the giant audience assembled at the Missouri Theater quite like the moment when, faced with invasion by hostile forces, the Indigenous subjects have no choice but to seize control of the image-making process. \u201cGive us your shot list,\u201d one young subject demands to uproarious applause.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The True\/False crowd did seem interested, first and foremost, in the movies themselves. Ancillary programming like podcast tapings and \u201cfield sessions,\u201d the festival\u2019s relaxed take on the dreaded festival panel format, drew sparse crowds. Of course, audiences turned out in droves for Sundance hits like Fire of Love<\/em> and We Met in Virtual Reality<\/em> \u2013 both of which saw a substantial number of queuers turned away. But they also packed into a shorts program on a Thursday afternoon and a four-hour look at Lithuania gaining its independence bright and early on a Sunday morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The festival has clearly bred an appetite for non-fiction storytelling that\u2019s more than just fodder for an eight-episode streaming series. At True\/False, binary thinking exists in their name only. The audiences craved films that took risks with form and narrative, not just slickly packaged delivery of pertinent information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If there was one facet that defined the disparate group of films I screened out of the festival, it was patience. Artists unveiled projects with staggering longitudinal breadth, presenting a feature culled from several years of filming. The results were revelatory because the filmmakers sought to understand their subjects, not just explain them. Nastia Korkia\u2019s GES-2<\/em> surveys five years in the retrofitting of the titular Moscow industrial space as it transitions from a former Kremlin power plant to an interdisciplinary art center. Her survey of the space as one holding Russia\u2019s past, present, and future comes to resemble the chimerical nature of the structure itself. A multi-chapter saga complete with interludes and a karaoke scene that left the True\/False crowd unsure if audience participation was allowed, GES-2 <\/em>offers acute (if slightly askew) observational filmmaking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet even after all this talk about audiences and crowds \u2014 a joyous and necessary element for the continuation of film festivals as a cultural force \u2014 what I\u2019ll hold with me longest from True\/False was an artistic experience I had entirely alone. While many festivals incorporate VR more as a stunt for sponsorship than an artistic outlet, Charlie Shackleton\u2019s As Mine Exactly<\/em> makes full use of the headset technology for a 30-minute work of immersion and intimacy. While the visuals of his \u201cdesktop movie\u201d remain constant, Shackleton performs the script for one viewer in a small room at a time (albeit unseen to them).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the filmmaker explores cinema as a tool to understand the mysteries of his mother\u2019s epilepsy, he excavates a fascinating history of images. Moving images were used to make mental sense of the condition when so little was known about it, but early filmmaking pioneers also turned that visibility into a weapon by sensationalizing their struggles. These images found a natural home in the early peep show style devices like the kinetoscope that people peered into like carnival attractions. Over a century later, Shackleton reclaims the audience of one for those afflicted with epilepsy, guiding our gaze to empathize rather than gawk. And now, unlike in the exhibition of those early images, the audience can also wield an impact on the film itself rather than the effect being unidirectional.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t know how my presence might have shaped Shackleton\u2019s As Mine Exactly<\/em> \u2014 I couldn\u2019t see it, but if I may be so presumptuous to say, I could feel <\/em>it. We\u2019re nearly the same age and share an affinity for understanding how images work, and I could sense the twinge of a smile curling up on my face leading to a certain relaxation of his delivery. Even though I had more insight into the creation of this movie magic than perhaps any I\u2019ve ever encountered, I\u2019ll just stick to what I know best: how a film impacted me, not how I impacted a film. This was easily the most unique and innovative VR experience I\u2019ve had to date. And while I\u2019m sure it would have been special to take in with those discerning True\/False audiences, I don\u2019t mind keeping this one to myself. \"\"\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our dispatch from the beloved documentary film festival (and, not incidentally, the last one before COVID).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":522,"featured_media":17992,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1416],"tags":[1419],"class_list":["post-17984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-festivals","tag-film-fests"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/522"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17984"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17984\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22029,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17984\/revisions\/22029"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}