7 documentaries from the True/False Film Festival that challenge how we perceive reality

What constitutes a “documentary”?

For 14 years, the True/False Film Festival has tried to bust open the surprisingly complex answer to that question. Most people think of documentaries simply as educational movies about important topics. But the festival, which is held annually in Columbia, Missouri, takes a broader view, highlighting movies that want to stretch how we perceive reality.

Every film at True/False is a nonfiction film — showing and telling stories that really happened, in the same world you and I inhabit. But the ways they do this are complicated. Sometimes they tell a story in the manner associated with conventional documentaries, using interviews, footage, and archival clips. But the movies that come to True/False are usually more innovative. Sometimes they’re more akin to poetry or essays than journalism. Sometimes they mix fiction and nonfiction. Actors aren’t usually involved, but sometimes they are. And rather than give straightforward answers to questions, most True/False films strive to show that the world is more complicated than we think.

The goal of these films isn’t to call “facts” into question. (Goodness knows nobody needs more of that right now.) Instead, it’s to reorient the way moviegoers see themselves as experiencers of those facts. What if what you believe to be true is suddenly turned on its head? Or what if the person onscreen refuses to conform to your expectations? And how does what happens inside the theater change the way we experience the world outside the theater?

True/False favors films that challenge their audiences to think about topics that are important to the world they live in — not by telling them how to think, but by expanding their frame of reference. At this year’s festival, some of the big topics included racism, justice issues, education, and neurodiversity. The packed theaters (over 50,000 tickets were sold this year) introduce attendees — mostly Midwesterners, and largely from mid-Missouri, according to organizers — to the very best of documentary and nonfiction cinema from the US and around the world.

It’s also a lot of fun. And because the festival aims to bridge cultures and disciplines — to create connections and points of contact between disparate people and ideas — it’s an encouraging point of refuge in the midst of a polarized cultural climate.

In hopes of expanding the spirit of True/False beyond Columbia, Missouri, here are seven films from the festival worth looking for as they debut in theaters and on streaming services this year.

This was the sleeper hit at the festival, winning raves from critics. In this Dutch film, a man talks to a group of migrants who have arrived in the Netherlands, looking for asylum, work, and a new way of life. Through his conversations with them — which range from heartwarming to infuriating — we start to understand that when it comes to immigration and asylum, the interactions between justice, compassion, and the law are far more complex than they look on the surface. And so, as it turns out, is the film.

Stranger in Paradise is currently playing at festivals.

In Casting JonBenet, a group of actors in Colorado participate in auditions to play characters in a movie about JonBenet Ramsey, the 6-year-old beauty queen who was murdered in her family’s home the day after Christmas in 1996. Through the audition process, the actors start to reveal what they think about the case, and how their own personal experiences shape what they believe. In the process, what we believe about the still-unsolved case gets more complicated, too. Casting JonBenet is a quiet and moving look at how we think about crime in America, and how not just media coverage, but also our own lives mess with our sense of objectivity.

Casting JonBenet will be released by Netflix on April 28.

In The Force, documentarian Peter Nicks spends two years following the embattled Oakland Police Department, which was put under federal supervision in 2003 after a wave of misconduct and other public offenses. The film starts out seeming hopeful, but it soon becomes clear that the Oakland PD’s situation is extraordinarily complicated, and that any possible solutions will be wildly complex. It makes a clear (and devastating) case that broken institutions can’t be reformed from within — they require a difficult counterbalancing culture shift from the outside.

The Force is currently playing at festivals.

It’s a film about rats, yes — and rat poison experts and rat hunters and people who keep rats as pets. But Rat Film is also about the history of eugenics, dubious science, “redlining,” and segregated housing in Baltimore. All these pieces are cut together like one big essay, where the meaning of each vignette only becomes more clear in light of the whole.

Rat Film is currently playing at festivals.

Director Claire Simon trains her camera on the complicated, unusual admission process at France’s most prestigious film school, La Fémis. We watch students take a preliminary entrance exam and then answer questions in interviews conducted by panels of people working in the industry — producers, distributors, writers, directors, and cinematographers. Then the applicants leave the room, and the judges discuss them as we listen in. It’s a slow, fascinating look at how the judges’ preconceptions and prejudices direct their decisions — especially since the film invites the audience to think about what they’d do in the judges’ seats.

The Graduation is currently playing at film festivals.

This isn’t one you’ll be able to see down at your local multiplex any time soon: a “live documentary” about one filmmaker’s reckoning with his family’s racist past. Travis Wilkerson’s great-grandfather murdered a black man in 1946, and he sets out for Alabama to try and figure out what happened. Through interviews, photos, music, and searing personal confession, Wilkerson tells the story while sitting on stage as clips and photos are projected onto the screen. As a “film,” it feels messy and sometimes unfocused, but as a theatrical performance it’s strong, mostly because Wilkerson’s anger and brokenness is palpable.

Because Did You Wonder Who Fired the Gun? is performed live, it won’t be “distributed” through the usual channels. Check Wilkerson’s website for updates.

Zamecka followed a pair of siblings, Ola (14) and Nikodem (13), who live in Poland with their alcoholic father. Nikodem is autistic, and Ola is left to look out for him, while also trying to be a teenager. Ola helps Nikodem prepare for his First Communion and hopes her mother will come home. This would be great as a feature film, but as a documentary it’s indelible, and a really close look at the toll adults’ absence takes on the children.

Communion is awaiting US release.