A chat with True/False Film Festival programmers' about the newly announced slate of films for this year's festival.

In this episode of the True/False Podcast: a conversation from last year's festival between filmmakers Ursula Liang and Khalik Allah. Both were at True/False to show their latest features. Liang's film Down a Dark Stairwell documents the effects of a police shooting of an unarmed Black man. Allah's film I Walk on Water pushes the boundaries of the filmmakers' relationship with those they document.

This week, we’re continuing our dispatches from True/False 2020 with a conversation between artist and filmmaker Rikkí Wright and programmer Jeanelle Augustin. Wright’s work is often deeply personal and offers commentary on how she interacts with and understands the world around her. “A Song About Love,” Wright's latest short film, showed ahead of The Giverny Document, and is a dreamy mix of vibrant, colorful images and archival material. As she told Jeanelle, Wright’s work started as a way to engage with her own family and document her life.

Many things about this year's True/False Film Festival have changed, but one that hasn't is our annual programmer preview. This year, programmers Angela Catalano and Amir George join the podcast to preview some of the films coming to this year's outdoor fest, which starts May 5. Angela and Amir preview Questlove's directorial debut Summer of Soul, Pete Nicks's Homeroom, and a number of other films and events fest-goers can look forward to.

We continue our dispatches from last year's festival with the final True/False Podcast episode recorded in-studio during 2020. The guests were filmmaker David France and Maxim Lapunov, who was imprisoned and tortured as part of the Chechen government's persecution of its LGBTQ community. Lapunov and the subjects of France's 2020 film, Welcome to Chechnya were the recipients of the True Life Fund, the festival's philanthropic effort which provides monetary support to those documented in the select film. Welcome to Chechnya co-producer Igor Myakotin provided translation.

Every year during the festival, True/False organizes field sessions: conversations between filmmakers about their films, experiences, and anything else that interests them. In this week's episode of the True/False Podcast, we’ll be listening in on one such conversation between filmmakers Meredith Zielke and Steve James. Zielke is an award-winning filmmaker and editor who co-directed A Machine To Live In, an impressionistic exploration of Brazil’s peculiar capital city that showed at True/False 2020. James, best known for directing academy-award-nominated films Hoop Dreams and Abacus: Small Enough To Jail, premiered four episodes of his new series “A City So Real” at the festival.

Nonfiction filmmakers often end up with a lot more material than they could ever use. That's something Elegance Bratton ran into making his debut feature, Pier Kids. The film portrays life in New York for gay and transgender youth living on the Christopher Street Pier. Producing the film involved capturing all kinds of people’s stories over the course of many years in order to portray Bratton’s own experiences with homelessness. Bratton spoke with True/False programmer Amir George.

The 2021 True/False Film Festival will look completely different from any previous fest. In the interest of social distancing and safety, all of the films will screen outdoors, at Stephens Lake Park in the fest's hometown of Columbia, Missouri. The True/False Podcast spoke with fest organizers to explain what festival-goers can expect at the new venue, and how it's tried to keep some vestiges of normalcy from festivals past.

The first confirmed case of COVID-19 in Missouri was announced on March 7. That was day two of last year's True/False Film Festival. During the festival, South by Southwest — one of the biggest film festivals in the world — announced it was canceling its March dates, and the world of film festivals plunged into a year of uncertainty. Now, the True/False Film Festival is returning, with a different look, a different size and a very different venue. The True/False Podcast sat down with festival leaders to track the long road that led to this year's upcoming festival.

It's been a long break, but the True/False Podcast is coming back, and soon! Before the new season starts in earnest on March 17, though, we wanted to preview True/False's online film retrospective called Hindsight. The series runs over eight weeks leading up to this year's festival, and it features films from True/False's past. Virtual attendees can buy passes and tickets to the series on the True/False website to gain access to the films, as well as discussion questions and prompts to accompany them. Ted Rogers, the programmer at Ragtag Cinema, selected the films, and sat down with the podcast to explain what festival-goers can look forward to.