Debuting at True/False (followed by First Look), Elizabeth Nichols’s Flying Lessons is a beautiful ode to a New York City Lower East Side artist as well as to the larger “dying breed” that once roamed the streets of Alphabet City, performing in its now extinct clubs. Importantly, it’s also a call to end rampant gentrification and a love story between director and character all rolled into one. The drama began, rather unhappily, with an eviction notice after NYC real estate owner/convicted fraudster Steve Croman bought the building Nichols was living in as a rent-stabilized tenant. Within months the “Bernie Madoff of landlords” had unleashed […]
by Lauren Wissot on Mar 1, 2024While the pandemic spurred many (white collar) Americans to flee the big cities and retreat to the safety and comfort of living room Zooming, Detroit native Mitch McCabe returned home to the big city and instead roamed the often chaotic streets, eventually journeying throughout Michigan, camera in tow. What the veteran filmmaker-educator (and Flaherty Seminar and MacDowell fellow) witnessed was what we all primarily saw in that “unprecedented” election year: anger. At lockdowns, at those attending protests unmasked. And masked. At the murder of George Floyd, at the BLM movement, at Trump. At Democrat elites like Governor Gretchen Whitmer and […]
by Lauren Wissot on Mar 1, 2024Today True/False announces the 2023 festival lineup, which takes place March 2-5 in Columbia, Missouri. This year’s program includes 33 feature films and 25 shorts, chosen from approximately 1,200 submissions alongside titles scouted from other film festivals. Celebrating its 20th iteration, True/False highlights work from filmmakers that experiment with “the possibilities of representing reality.” Find the full lineup below. TRUE/FALSE FILM FEST 2023 FEATURE FILMS Anhell69 | Dir. Theo Montoya; 2022; 72 min. Blurring the lines of reality, director Theo Montoya leads the viewer through a magical-realism journey to recover the memories of his friends and chosen family. Art Talent […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Feb 8, 2023The lineup is out for this year’s True/False Film Fest, running March 5 to 9. Find the full list below (including this year’s Neither/Nor retrospective sidebar, focusing on Missouri born and raised filmmakers, and a retrospective for True Vision honorees Bill and Turner Ross) along with links to trailers and some previous coverage of a few directors from our end. All descriptions from the festival. 45365 Dir. Bill & Turner Ross; 2009; 94 min. An ode to the colors and characters of small-town Americana, True Vision honorees Bill and Turner Ross’ debut is a sweeping portrait of their birthplace, Sidney, […]
by Vadim Rizov on Feb 13, 2020