There’s nothing like a parade to celebrate community spirit. When I arrived in Columbia, Missouri (aka CoMo) throngs of revelers in homemade costumes were marching down the main boulevard to kick off the 8th edition of the True/False Film Fest. The aptly named documentary festival ran from March 3-6, and community spirit was evident in the grassroots event dedicated to the audience experience. Columbia, a small city just north of the Ozarks, counts more than one quarter of its 108,000 residents as advanced degree holders. The University of Missouri (aka Mizzou) is the largest among several schools, and its prominent […]

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Friday, Jan. 21, 9:00 pm — Temple Theatre] Making The Interrupters was, by its very nature, a series of hoped-for surprises: Producer Alex Kotlowitz and I wanted to be awakened in the middle of the night by a violence interrupter and told we should come quick to capture them dealing with a potential mediation. No such moment was more surprising than “Flamo,” a young man full of rage, making his entrance into our film by opening his front door and angrily flinging his cell phone out into the snow. He was on a warpath of revenge against this […]