PRINTKeepin' it reel
True/False proves that a film’s premiere isn’t as important as the message it delivers
COURTESY OF TRUEFALSE.ORG
Kamp Katrina will be shown at True/False under the category of sneak preview. This allows films to call a future screening a premiere.
March 1, 2007 | 12:00 a.m. CST
Each January, celebrities, trailed by entourages and stalked by the omnipresent paparazzi, invade Park City, Utah, for the Sundance Film Festival. This event, which boasts designer giveaways and illicit star trysts, puts the “festivus” into film festival. But why is Sundance so spectacular? Chances are it’s because of all the stars in the latest winter fashions and the tendency to neglect independent films, the original point of the event. But near encounters with Hollywood’s A-list won’t be among the highlights from Columbia’s fourth annual True/False Film Festival.
10,600 tickets sold at 2006 True/False
72 films offered at this year's festival
3,866 minutes total of all the films at the 2007 True/False Film Festival
1 minute drive from Ragtag to the Missouri Theatre
5 minutes to find a parking spot if you drive from Ragtag to Missouri Theatre instead of walking
79 the price for a double hotel room at the Regency, the hotel sponsor for the event
2 minutes - minutes - the length of video entries for the Gimme Truth Competition
5 venues to watch the True/False films
12 hours a volunteer needs to work in order to get a pass and a T-shirt
9 major highways needed to get from Columbia to the Sundance Film Festival
1,200 seats in Missouri Theatre
29 countries represented in the films at True/False this year
$8 cost of one ticket to True/False, excluding Gala night and Reel Gone Round-up
7 years - how long it took three teenagers to make Raiders: The Adaptation shot by shot. Eric Zala, one of the teenagers, will be speaking at the Indy-pendent workshop
Instead, the films will be the topic of conversation. The festival, a local bragging right since 2004, is the brainchild of Columbians Paul Sturtz and David Wilson. True/False sets itself apart from other film festivals through its focus on nonfiction flicks, its Midwestern locale and its total absence of attitude, pretension and US Weekly reporters. This year, the festival expands on its signature branding with the philosophy to change film festival culture by not focusing on a film’s premiere status.
Wilson says that premiere mania is killing festivals. Many film festivals, from the large to the small, hinge their public relations and ticket sales on obtaining first-run, never-before-seen films. “Everyone wants to announce and trumpet a premiere, whether it’s the world premiere, the North American premiere or the New York premiere,” Wilson says. In the film world the premiere trumpet blares loud and strong. Last year Cars opened on four custom-built outdoor screens at Lowe’s Motor Speedway in North Carolina. A movie will even premiere several times, one for each new location. Film festivals’ obsession with exposing a film to the world hurts some smaller festivals. They are barred from showing films because another prominent festival has obtained exclusive rights for the debut.
Wilson says it makes sense for a marketplace festival, such as Sundance, to focus on the premiere status of the film because the purpose of the festival is to release films for distribution. “But the status of marketplace festivals is only true for Sundance and another half-dozen festivals,” Wilson says. “The other 500 festivals should consider what defines them other than having premiere [films].” Wilson feels confident about True/False’s identity and doesn’t feel the need to use the number of premieres as the festival’s backbone. The True/False vision aims to embody and support the spirit of the documentary.
“While we do want to show newer films that haven’t found a market or an audience, we aren’t going to worry about whether or not it’s a premiere,” Wilson says. “For instance, this year we are showing some documentaries that we originally viewed as a TV series. We don’t care whether they’ll ever show in a theater again; what’s important to us is the spirit.”
True/False takes inspiration from the Telluride Film Festival, where the program isn’t announced until the curtain rises. “Yet people still buy $1,000 passes and fly 6,000 miles to get there because they trust on faith alone that the organizers will pick good films,” Wilson says. In 2006, Telluride featured The Last King of Scotland, Babel and Little Children. Matthew Beaudin, editor of the Telluride Daily Planet, says he (usually) likes the enigma of not knowing: “It’s a great thing for those of us that live here. We just hope we get in. Like this past year, Babel came through. I went to see it on a whim, and it was great. Fur, however, sucked, and I wish I could’ve gotten a heads-up on that one.”
Wilson hopes that both the festivalgoers and the film world will someday endow True/False with blind faith to choose films, regardless if they are listed on the program or are premieres. He envisions a festival where filmmakers will bring prestigious documentaries to debut (and consider it a point of merit) before they move to larger venues. This will allow the festival to attract more films to Columbia and help bypass the premiere politics that bar certain films from showing before their official premiere.
True/False won’t be rolling out the red carpet anywhere around town, but some films will have what True/False has dubbed “sneak previews.” These allow the festival to show new films and still maintain their “official premiere” status for elsewhere. True/False also will have “secret screenings,” which appear in code names of blue, red and green. These films can’t be advertised by the festival due to premiere restrictions.
Columbia might not be the ideal getaway destination, but some True/False faithfuls turn the weekend into a vacation. Linda and Launce Mustoe of Moberly, their two sons and three friends, will use the Regency on Broadway as a base camp to get their reel’s worth. Linda, an attendee of the last two festivals, isn’t concerned about premieres: “I don’t care if a film is premiering or not. I organize my film schedule around films concerning issues that interest me.” Linda recalls her own vision of what makes the True/False festival special. “I still remember one time during our first festival in 2005 when we were walking from one film at the Ragtag to the next at the Missouri Theatre,” she says, “and how exciting it was to see so many animated people of all ages in downtown Columbia, all sharing these wonderful films. It was like, Sundance and Telluride, eat your heart out.”
