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Sabin says that the film causes viewers to reflect on themselves. The individuals in the film will be imprinted in viewers’ minds long after it’s over.
March 1, 2007 | 12:00 a.m. CST
With 72 films showing at True/False, it might be difficult to pick which ones to see. Harder still is having to agree with your date, friend, mom or anyone lacking your impeccable taste. Fortunately, Vox makes it easy by handpicking five films perfect for you and whomever accompanies you to the festival. That’s right, we’ve done the dirty work
so you can kick back, relax and enjoy the flicks.
Sure, True/False makes for a great night out, but sometimes you can do without the long lines, all the people and, considering this is the Midwest, the unpredictable weather conditions. Plus, there are loads of great films from past festivals worth viewing at home.Vox clues you in on the cream of the True/False crop, all of which (and many more) are available for rental at Ninth Street Video.
Touching the Void
Director: Kevin Macdonald
Year: 2003
Length: 1 hour, 46 mins.
After watching this literally and figuratively chilling recreation of a mountain climber’s journey down Siula Grande, you will be thankful you enjoy living vicariously through adventurers rather than actually being one.
Zero Day
Director: Ben Coccio
Year: 2003
Length: 1 hour, 32 mins.
Two boys film their plans of carrying out a Columbine on their high school and leave you squirming in your seat as you are faced with the other side of the story.
Three of Hearts: a postmodern family
Director: Susan Kaplan
Year: 2004
Length: 1 hour, 35 mins.
Sam’s, Steven’s and Samantha’s honest intimacy pulls you deep into the film and under the sheets as they pillow talk you through eight years of their unique ménage-a-trois relationship.
Control Room
Director: Jehane Noujaim
Year: 2004
Length: 1 hour, 24 mins.
America’s Central Communications competes against Iraq’s Al Jazeera in a battle for press supremacy and makes you wonder who’s telling the truth.
Murderball
Directors: Henry Alex Rubin and Dana Adam Shapiro
Year: 2005
Length: 1 hour, 28 mins.
The quadriplegic athletes who play a murderous form of rugby will ram their way into your heart with their candid dialogue about living on the four-wheeled edge.
Kamp Katrina
Treat Yourself
Directors: Ashley Sabin and David Redmon
Venue: Ragtag
Day: Saturday
Time: Noon
Feature length: 1 hour, 14 mins.
As much a study of personal character as a commentary on life after the hurricane that destroyed New Orleans, Kamp Katrina will make your mind spin as you watch selflessness personified and simultaneously wonder if you would do the same.
Unique and flashy as the city she loves, Ms. Pearl spontaneously invites 14 Hurricane Katrina victims to live in her backyard. Co-directors Ashley Sabin and David Redmon film the impromptu settlement over six months and document the wrecked city, which is refracted through Ms. Pearl’s tenants who drink, fight and do drugs to mask the problems Katrina has laid bare.
“People are interested in who Ms. Pearl is — why she would open up her backyard,” Sabin says. “Most people wouldn’t do it.”
When others would rather pick up the remnants of their own homes and lives, Ms. Pearl picks up her pieces and the ones of 14 broken people. The wrecked city is refracted through Ms. Pearl’s tenants who drink, fight and do drugs to mask the problems Katrina has laid bare. With no social services to help them cope, Ms. Pearl struggles to provide what they need.
Sabin says that the film causes viewers to reflect on themselves. The individuals in the film will be imprinted in viewers’ minds long after it’s over. It’s not a happy story, but the grim portrayal is laced with hope. “[The film] pushes and pulls on people,” Sabin says. It brings the Katrina crisis up close and causes contemplation. Although Ms. Pearl is not your average heroine, she is a nearly selfless one, whose acts seem to beg the hard internal question, “Would you do the same?”
Following the film there will be a compulsory character quiz and selfishness measurement so viewers can gauge how their own merits match up against Ms. Pearl’s. No, not really, but these might be the tests you take yourself through after the closing credits roll.
The Devil Came on Horseback
Take your Indifferent Friend
Directors: Annie Sundberg and Ricki Stern
Venue: The Missouri Theatre
Date: Sunday
Time: 1:30 p.m.
Feature length: 1 hour, 28 mins.
There always seems to be a disconnect between the news and the actual newsworthy event. Either people stay enclosed in their personal bubble and don’t know that terrible things are happening, or people do know the terrible things but do nothing.
Co-directors Annie Sundberg and Ricki Stern seek to eliminate some of this apathy with The Devil Came on Horseback.
Co-directors Annie Sundberg and Ricki Stern seek to eliminate apathy with The Devil Came on Horseback.
The film traces the personal journey of former Marine Capt. Brian Steidle. While working for the African Union, Steidle used his camera as a weapon to shoot the atrocities that unfolded before his lens.
It gives a “clear and immediate sense of what is happening,” Sundberg says. The violent and dim perspective through which the film is shot is reality. And all jokes aside, this reality should concern your most indifferent of friends.
Row Hard No Excuses
Drag your couch potato
Director: Luke Wolbach
Venue: Ragtag
Date: Saturday
Time: 10 p.m.
Feature length: 1 hour, 28 mins.
This film is sure to appeal to everyone: the middle-aged man in crisis, the mom in an empty nest, the lazy college student lost in a sea of overachievers. It speaks to a universal truth of desiring success and meaning in life.
John Zeigler and Tom Mailhot, both in midlife, seek to find meaning somewhere along the Atlantic Ocean during a 3,000-mile rowing challenge. Of the 36 teams from 13 nations, they are the only Americans and are two of the oldest competitors.
Vox recommends motivating the couch potato in your life with Row Hard No Excuses
“The film is both an exciting sports adventure story and an intimate portrait of the two-man crew … who in my opinion are on a quest for more than just a first- place finish,” director Luke Wolbach says. Because of the sheer scale of the pair’s aspirations, viewers tend to mull over their own life aspirations.
When Wolbach has shown the film to family and friends, he has “seen the conversation go to interesting places — often about family dynamics and personal triumphs or disappointments.”
Watching Tom and John’s journey should motivate humanity’s most lethargic couch potato. Perhaps the film will inspire your spud to pick up an active hobby, but at the very least, it will encourage Mr. or Ms. Potato to sit with better posture and ponder life.
The Monestary
Ask your love interest
Director: Pernille Rose Grønkjaer
Venue: The Missouri Theatre
Date: Saturday
Time: 6 p.m.
Feature length: 1 hour, 24 mins.
You will first earn points for being in the know enough to have chosen a True/False film for a date, but you might also score points for picking a romantic comedy. The uncharacteristic love story between Mr. Vig and a nun in The Monestary is guaranteed to instigate the entwining of fingers and, potentially, limbs.
Once upon a time, an old man named Mr. Vig dreams of converting a castle into a monastery. Sister Amvrosiya helps his dream meet reality, but soon conflict arises. The pair disagrees on how to run the monastery. “He’s like family — if he wasn’t like family, I wouldn’t quarrel with him,” Sister Amvrosiya told director Pernille Rose Grønkjaer.
In this un-Hallmark film, Grønkjaer portrays an imperfect love that is steeped in pure joy to produce a real yet uplifting love story.
“It is a very funny film all the way through,” Grønkjaer says, referring to the fight scenes. “But at the same time it is very serious.”
He is an old bachelor, and she is a nun about 40 years his junior. He has never been married, and nuns must stay unmarried, so a different, almost familial love develops. This love is unexpected as is the film’s endearing intimacy, but the couple’s relationship furthers the film’s focus on living and loving as fully as possible.
In this un-Hallmark film, Grønkjaer portrays an imperfect love that is steeped in pure joy to produce a real yet uplifting love story. Coming off the oh-so-commercial Feb. 14, Grønkjaer’s concoction might be just the love potion viewers need to jump-start a new relationship or heat up a lukewarm one.
The Third Monday in October
Bring the budding politician
Director: Vanessa Roth
Venue: The Blue Note
Date: Sunday
Time: 10:30 a.m.
Feature length: 1 hour, 31 mins.
Oh, life as a 13-year-old. Recall the gangly limbs, unfortunate acne and overall insecurity of that awkward, in-between age. Then imagine having to define a political platform, articulate beliefs, give a speech and run for president. Shudder and cringe.
At a time when the nation was considering Bush or Kerry, 13-year-olds were considering their own presidential ballot. Across the nation, more than 200,000 children ran for president of their middle schools. Vanessa Roth follows 11 of them as they run their presidential races. The candidates are filmed doing everything from campaigning at school to speech writing at home.
Director Vanessa Roth describes The Third Monday in October as mélange of films Spellbound, The War Room and Election. It is first funny and entertaining but also a serious film.
Roth describes her film as mélange of films Spellbound, The War Room and Election. It is first funny and entertaining but also a serious film. The political undertones are subtle but significant. The eighth-graders emulate what they see in the adult world, and thus, superficiality soars. Popularity, attractiveness and the way someone says something, rather than what someone is saying, play huge roles in the elections. Subtly Roth asks whether we might “need to rethink how we shape voting for our young people.”
When you think about the example U.S. politicians make for children, the illustrations are frightening. Think about one elected official who snuck around in the dark to undermine his competition’s campaign and later lied about it to his superiors. Or another who “did not have sexual relations with that woman” and yet another who caused a huge scandal to erupt between the CIA and the current administration.
This quirky film will appeal as much to children as it will to adults and to budding politicians especially. Hopeful or elected officials would benefit from watching the way their or others’ actions are played out in a surprisingly astute 13-year-old forum, and the film will hopefully cause the potential politicians in your life to pause before they lie, cheat or steal their way to the top.
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