Hear tt stern-enzi talk more about the True/False film festival in this episode of Cincinnati Edition.
With close to 30 years of attending film festivals — as a fevered patron, film critic and festival programmer/artistic director — I continue to marvel at how joining an eager and passionate audience of narrative believers amounts to a near-religious experience. We all place our faith in the power of projected moving images to explain some facet of life that would otherwise escape our efforts to comprehend the magnitude of those moments. Film transforms these stories into lessons that can and should stand the test of time.
So true, right?
Truth is a tricky concept, especially when applied to religion or, in this case, documentary narratives. What is true? And for a festival like True/False, celebrating 21 years, why would they muddy the waters by including the notion of falsehood into the mix? We want (and need) to believe that documentaries are the unadulterated truth and nothing more, nothing less. But is the falsehood here something more meaningful? Is it an acknowledgement that, at times, re-creation enters into the telling and begins to cast a shade over the veracity of the presentation?
The bigger question is how on earth is a festival like True/False able to create a recreational environment, a celebration that is so much fun? Film is just the starting point and likely not always the final destination on this miraculous journey.
This year, heading into my second appearance as an attendee of the four-day event in Columbia, Mo., I brought two team members from the Over-the-Rhine International Film Festival to experience the raucous ecstasy of parties with the perfect mix of swank and swooning inclusivity, parades with outrageously costumed participants acting as if this vibe is just a regular day in the neighborhood, and a deep-seated love of more than a storytelling format. As a truly international film festival, True/False calls its scattered congregation home, year after year, and they come with hearts and minds ready to get lifted once again.
Imagine a party where passholders not only get to rub shoulders with filmmakers but must also go a step beyond in the mixing and mingling, because the filmmakers are party gatekeepers: they are the ones charged with passing out free drink tickets. Another great and engaging aspect of the allure of the festival is how each pre-screening features bands from around the country (and sometimes the world) who perform (and earn tips from audience members), but then get a showcase gig at a local venue during the festival.
It would be easy to get lost in the undeniable charm on display in every facet of the planning and execution, which is why I gave myself a bit of grace. I figured, with no festival looming in 2024, I didn't need to press in my role as a curator. Anyone who has read my festival coverage over the years knows I can transform into a film-watching dervish. Watching five films a day wouldn't even cause me to break a sweat. The truth, for me at this year's festival, was about succumbing to the experience of being among such a fanatical flock (although if a title spoke to me, in that soulful whisper that leaves me intoxicated, then I could follow wherever it wanted to lead me).
And let's say that True/False didn't disappoint me. Whether offering films squarely in the thematic wheelhouse of the Over-the-Rhine International Film Festival or presenting enticing narratives on parenthood (and the diverse connections between parents and children) I felt a calling to watch critically and enjoy this curious celebration of truth and truth-seekers.
This Is Going to Be Big (directed by Thomas Charles Hyland)
My first film of the first day of the festival landed me in a packed theater for Hyland's uplifting documentary about a group of neurodiverse high school students in Australia auditioning for roles in a biennial production — an original musical focusing on Australian singer John Farnham, that owes a creative debt of sorts to the 2007 film I’m Not There (which featured several performers playing Bob Dylan throughout various phases of his life and career. This Is Going to Be Big trains its spotlight on four teens as they deal with performance pressures and life issues as they prepare for the show. Hyland, who was on-hand for Q&As following the film screenings, addressed concerns like whether or not the film provided the most authentic and integrated experience for the students.
Background (directed by Khaled Abdulwahed)
As a filmmaker, Abdulwahed tackles the most profound and personal story anyone could imagine with Background. He's a Syrian refugee living in Germany who is in near-constant communication with his father Sadallah in Syria. Abdulwahed longs to bring his father to Germany, but is currently unable to navigate the byzantine immigration process. In the meantime, they engage in fragmented conversations, many of which expose Sadallah's past in East Germany, where he studied as an exchange student over 60 years ago. Abdulwahed searches for clues and snippets of his father's life then, going so far as to find pictures of his father in student archives and, using Photoshop technology, inserts him into current images as he tracks his father's footsteps. The film is a collage with very little actual narrative to hold it together, but it lovingly seeks to foreground a life before it slips away.
Three Promises (directed by Yusef Srouji)
In 2007, True/False instituted the True Life Fund to support filmmakers and subjects and offer collective gratitude for their willingness to lay their stories bare, sometimes without meaningful compensation. Srouji and his family earned the fund's recognition this year, for their experiences as Christians in early-2000s Palestine. (Watch the trailer at the top of the page.) Srouji's mother documented their life via home movies as a means of capturing not only their joy but also the realities of living and coping with the Second Intifada while living in the West Bank. We see and hear this woman as she pleads with God to ensure her family will survive the crisis, even if it means leaving their homeland. Srouji does his mother proud throughout Three Promises and without a doubt, such a labor of love deserves this great honor.
Girls State (directed by Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss)
Another special designee, Girls State earned the annual Show Me True/False screening slot, which celebrates some aspect of the larger Missouri community. McBaine and Moss, following up on their Apple documentary Boys State (which played at True/False in 2020), turned their gaze toward a summer program in Missouri where teenage girls gathered on a college campus to build a government from the ground up. Of course, in 2022 (the year when this installment was filmed) the country was dealing with the impending overturning of Roe v. Wade and the young women found themselves dealing with the inequalities they faced as they watched the boys camp garner a significantly greater spotlight. Despite the typical political divide, these young people should serve as true role models for how bipartisan sloganeering can lead to real change.
RELATED: A guide to some of the best films shown at TIFF 2023
A Photographic Memory (directed by Rachel Elizabeth Seed)
The idea of a child searching for a missing parent is likely too on-the-nose for me, but I couldn't help falling for Seed's fascinating examination of her journey of discovery. Her mother, Sheila Turner-Seed, was an accomplished photojournalist (and proto-podcaster) who died when Rachel was 18 months old. Sheila left behind a trove of intimate interviews with some of the most famous photographers of her (and any) time — Henri Cartier-Bresson, Gordon Parks, and Bruce Davidson to name a few. As Rachel digs deeper into the archives, she finds a powerful reflection of her own creative experiences and learns harsh truths about how the lines between the professional and the personal can blur and leave devastating impacts on those left behind.
Just like the truth.
