Review: “The Drama”

What did she do? That was the core question following the initial trailer for Kristoffer Borgli’s The Drama, the one driving the intrigue for this darkly funny, cringe-inducing film about a seemingly idyllic relationship that runs off the rails in the lead-up to a wedding. Gathered around a table in a dimly lit caterer’s dining […]

Review: “Forbidden Fruits”

Meredith Alloway’s wicked debut feature film, the off-beat horror comedy Forbidden Fruits, is a truly odd piece of work. Not odd because of its kooky premise, which centers around a group of young women who form a coven behind the scenes of the ritzy mall boutique where they work, their friendship and ideals built not […]

Review: “Daughters of the Forest”

Daughters of the Forest opens with lush images of verdant forests and mind-boggling close-ups of fungi, their movements slowed down to allow us to luxuriate in their strangeness as they puff out spores in clouds of smoke. They more closely resemble alien creatures than anything you’d expect to find on Earth, a sentiment that’s echoed […]

Review: “The Bride!”

In this video for Letterboxd, Jessie Buckley cites Barbara Stanwyck’s performance in the 1933 drama Baby Face as a key influence on her dual role as Mary Shelley and the Bride of Frankenstein in Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Bride! (the obvious comp is Elsa Lanchester’s dual role as the same in James Whale’s 1935 film, although […]

True/False 2026: “Barbara Forever,” “Broken English,” “True North”

Unconventional biographic documentaries and sharp use of archival footage are the hallmarks of the following three films that screened at the 2026 True/False Film Fest in Columbia, Missouri: Barbara Forever uses the personal archives of pioneering lesbian filmmaker Barbara Hammer to tell the story of her life and career; Broken English depicts a fictionalized archive […]

True/False 2026: “Phenomena,” “Time and Water,” “The Oldest Person in the World”

In keeping with the theme of the True/False Film Fest’s 23rd edition, You Are Here, many of the film’s screening in the annual celebration of non-fiction filmmaking in Columbia, Missouri dealt not just with our existence in physical spaces, but also our place in time. Many weave together both, from the vibes-heavy science doc Phenomena […]

True/False 2026: “First They Came for My College”

New College— the public liberal arts school located in Sarasota, Florida— sits on a picturesque campus right by the water. Its buildings are dominated by towering palm trees. Some of its students dedicate time to maintaining gardens that showcase the region’s native greenery. Its exterior beauty reflects its original mission; established in the early 1960s, […]

True/False 2026: “Pinball,” “What Comes from Sitting in Silence,” “To Hold a Mountain”

The True/False Film Fest— the esteemed non-fiction film festival held annually in Columbia, Missouri— always excels at elevating global perspectives that most Americans (let alone Midwesterners) aren’t exposed to. The following three films— the world premieres Pinball and What Comes From Sitting in Silence in addition to the recent Sundance premiere To Hold a Mountain— […]

True/False 2026: “A Place of Absence”

Halfway through her lyrical documentary A Place of Absence, director Marialuisa Ernst claims that ambiguous loss is the worst kind of suffering. The void your missing loved one leaves behind weighs you down. It’s a weight that only becomes heavier by the lack of answers or closure. But it’s the admirable women who push through […]

True/False 2026: “Landscapes of Memory”

Leah Galant’s slippery and sobering documentary Landscapes of Memory begins with two things: her father, and her pending move to Germany, where she intends to study Holocaust memory. Her dad, Allen, is the primary keeper of their family’s history; his parents— Galant’s grandparents— were Holocaust survivors, and few physical documents of their past remain. The […]