After seven hours in the St. Louis airport, I have returned from my long, wonderful weekend at the True/False Film Festival. Below, you’ll find a recap of the films I covered whilst in Columbia, MO. But first, I want to give a shout-out to Satin and Chenille.
Before each screening at True/False, “buskers” culled from all over the country take the stage to perform while the audience is filing in. At some of the larger True/False venues, the buskers sort of fade into the background, but at an intimate space like the new Little Ragtag, the performers really get a chance to take over the room. That’s where I saw Satin and Chenille, a girl and boy (I came late, so I’m not sure which one is Satin and which one is Chenille) who did a tongue-in-cheek set of standards and love songs before the Friday night screening of Carny.
“I hope you guys love each other as much as we love love songs,” said the boy, before they launched into an acoustic guitar-fueled version of “Baby It’s Cold Outside.” They followed that up with an epic, partially-accapella version on “I’ve Had The Time of My Life,” which turned into a mass sing-a-long. It was a great moment, and maybe an audience of 50 or so moviegoers united by a Dirty Dancing reference is a little thing compared to the achievement of such a well-curated program of films, but it’s also one of the many things that sets True/False apart from larger, more impersonal festivals, and it’s definitely a reason to go back next year.
Anyway. Check out a guide to my True/False reviews after the jump.
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I’ve become fascinated over the past year with the visual tropes of the Hurricane Katrina film. The helicopter shots of the city underwater, borrowed news footage of refuges spilling out of the super dome, and of course, the ultimate post-Katrina New Orleans money shot: the passenger-side tracking shot of a devastated residential street, probably in the Lower Ninth Ward, meant to bowl us over by offering the illusion of an endless loop of devastation.
When that tracking shot appears in Peter Entell’s Shake The Devil Off, which screened for the first time in the U.S. last night at True/False, it plays to a slightly different end. For every three addresses occupied by a pile of rubble, there seems to be one house not only left standing, but apparently without significant external damage. Certainly, such an image speaks to the frustrating randomness of nature, but more than that, it reminds that appearances can be deceiving. The owners of that home may have the advantage of having an intact structure to return to, but that may not mean much when their community has crumbled all around them.
With shots like this, Shake The Devil Off incorporates some of the tropes of Cinema Katrina, but it’s maybe the least dependent on those tropes for its power than any of the many recent films about the storm and the city that I’ve seen. In fact, in that sense, it’s maybe the only truly post-Katrina film on the festival circuit, in that it’s not really at all concerned with the storm itself, but with the social, economic and racial ripple effects of Katrina that really only became apparent in the months thereafter.
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Tomorrow morning, I’m flying to St. Louis, then taking a bus to Columbia, Missouri to check out the True/False Film Festival. The festival brings together non-fiction films from recent major festivals, world premieres, and surprise screenings. Here’s a look at a few of the films that I plan to see before heading back to New York on Sunday. If you’re showing a film at the festival or will just be there hanging out and would like to meet up, send me an email at karina AT spout DOT com, and we’ll make it happen.
Shake The Devil Off: In post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans, pastor Father LeDoux tries to stop the closing of St. Augustine’s church, a vital community center thought be some to be the birthplace of jazz. See the French-subtitled trailer (the film first premiered at Locarno) here.
Carny: A work-in-progress presentation of Allison Murphy’s doc on the personal lives and relationships of carnival workers, based on Virginia Lee Hunter’s photo book. Judging by the footage shown on Carny’s website, the film, which blends Super 8 film with video, looks amazing.
Hold Me Tight, Let Me Go: A cinema verite portrait of an English school for troubled kids, Kim Longinotto’s film won a special jury prize last fall at IDFA.
Gonzo: I missed the press screening of Alex Gibney’s Hunter S. Thompson doc at Sundance, but maybe it’s for the best: recent Oscar-winner Gibney is expected to to be in attendance at Gonzo’s Saturday True/False screening.
Very Young Girls: David Schisgal’s doc on teenage prostitutes premiered last fall at Toronto. At True/False, it’s being honored as part of the True Life Fund, though which the festival choose one film per year for which to “raise funds to support and honor those who appear in front of the camera.”
