Usually Sallie and I are bumping shoulder to shoulder, trying to get a spot at Top 10 Wines or Flatbranch, but the festival admittedly didn't feel as attended as it did in past years, which is great for me, more room at the theater and in the restaurants. But it does make me worry about the future of the festival.
Weather is always a question at True/False. We've been there for two blizzards. We're talking over a foot of snow. We've been there for tornados. We've been there for the most perfect spring weather. This year was a bit of a mix. It was really warm during the day, sort of cold at night, and rain seemed to be looming constantly.
Girls State was a look into a cult-like ra-ra America conference for Missouri youth, where they theoretically will practice democracy and try coming up with a functional government in a week. The documentary took a swing I didn't expect, but it's worth seeing, if not only to know what high-schoolers are thinking about today. (At least from the girls side, it's mostly bodily autonomy and abortion rights)
A sibling documentary came out a few years ago called Boys State where it focuses more on the boys side of this program. I found the girls side to be more interesting.
Sperm World is one that is still under embargo. I'm not a professional journalist, but just to keep things under wraps, I won't say much about the movie other than it wasn't what I thought it would be and I really didn't like the subjects. Left this one feeling 7 shades of ick.
This is Going to Be Big this is one of the most heartwarming movies I've seen. An Australian school for neurodivergent teens puts on a play about John Farnham and watching these kids traverse difficulties and overcome together is just great. The kids are funny, they are caring, you can't help but root for them.
Union reinforces how corrupt of a company Amazon is. This is a film about New York warehouse workers trying to unionize. They are overworked, in dangerous conditions, for little pay. Anytime they report these situations, people are fired for false reasons.
A group of workers are trying to get the warehouse to unionize so that they have power to push back on Amazon. Amazon brings in strike busters to try and convince those still working at the warehouse that they will lose money and power if they join a union. It's irritating, every step of the way.
I'll be cancelling my Prime Membership once again.
I Like It Here was a film that I was worried would send me into an existential crisis. It's the story of a film maker coming to terms with the end of his life. He's ultimately not ready to die. He's still having fun. It actually was uplifting because you're seeing someone in their late 80s, living life as if they were still in their 50s. It reinforced how much life I potentially have left.
Every year at True/False, there's at least one movie that makes me weep openly in the theater. This year Ibelin took that award. Ibelin is about a Norwegian gamer who dies of a muscular degenerative disease by the time he's 25. As his parents prepare for his funeral, they found out Mats had an entire life within World of Warcraft. He had friends, he was a bit of a womanizer, he would run miles in the game daily. And as his friends start appearing in the film in real life, you start to realize the power of these virtual worlds.
Alien Island seemed like an interesting documentary about UFO sightings in Chile. It was radio and cassette tapes stitched together to tell a story about several small villages that were all seeing the strange occurrences. Unfortunately, we were at a venue without arena seating and the subtitles were a little too low to actually read them. On top of that, it was damn near 80 degrees in there. So we left about 20 minutes in.
Seeking Mavis Beacon was a bit of a disappointment. I used Mavis Beacon in school and always had this professional woman of color staring back at me. I had assumed that was Mavis Beacon. Turns out, it was just a model that the software developers found at a department store. The film tracks down the model, but unfortunately you never get the payoff of meeting her.
Boys was a nice slice of life to leave the festival on. It's about a group of 20 year old's in Germany and follows them around to parties, clubs, where they talk about love and video games.
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