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: “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 […]

True/False 2026: “Who Moves America”

The title of Who Moves America, Yael Bridges’ galvanizing crowd-pleaser, poses the film’s central thesis statement with succinct clarity: that the world runs on the labor of the most underpaid and undervalued workers, whose inability to walk away from a consistent, decently paying job— regardless of the long hours and inhumane working conditions— keeps them […]

True/False 2026: “How to Clean a House in 10 Easy Steps”

It’s like something out of a fairy tale: in 1998, in search of better opportunities, Beatriz Valencia immigrated to the United States from her home country of Colombia. She took on a job as a domestic worker in Florida, cleaning the absurdly spacious homes of the wealthy, sending most of her income to her husband […]