In December, a similar revelation appeared, this time deep under the seas. Pictures were taken of an enormous tentacled behemoth straight out of a sci-fi novel, a giant squid 25 feet long.
In this year's festival poster, painted by artist Joel Sager, these fantastic creatures appraise each other for the first time. The meeting is uneasy, but it's clearly pregnant with excitement. More than anything, they don't know what to make of each other.
It's the shock of the new.
The True/False Film Fest is the business of celebrating such tense juxtapositions. Now in our fourth year, we vigorously seek out clashing, oppositional ideas, and then corral the resulting ruckus in the warm, womb-like environment of one of America's friendliest college towns.
Our visiting cast of international filmmakers — a quarter of whom come to exotic mid-Missouri from overseas — gather here for one weekend and unveil their latest field reports. They represent a new kind of journalist — one who immerses us in the texture and pulse of places normally reduced to backdrops for harried news teams.
Remarkably, from disparate films, themes can emerge: this year, they include fringe-dwellers, the spirit of '68, orphans, competition and, not surprisingly, the Middle East. But, more often, abrupt segues reveal the awesome spectrum of fresh and thoughtful nonfiction being created. So, breathe deep, dive into the program, and take a chance on a story that may sit outside of your comfort zone.
This festival, starting seemingly from scratch each fall but steadily growing into a raging, giant-squid-devouring Leviathan by mid-January, owes its life to an uncanny, mostly unpaid grassroots effort. To make it all fly, we rely on our sponsors' foresight, our staff and volunteers' sweat and our neighbors' enthusiasm. They help make a world-class event happen in our hometown, and it does us proud.
With much thanks,
David Wilson & Paul Sturtz
Co-conspirators