For 83 days each year, the town of Viganella is in shadow.  In the winter months the sun is too low to peak up over the mountains and cast its rays over Viganella, so the village’s inhabitants hibernate.  The social importance that a community needs in order to grow is extinguished so to speak, since there is no sun to shine down on the valley floor.

The town mayor, Piefranco Midali, wants to fix this.  So he hires an architect, and together they charismatically design a giant mirror built on the side of the mountain, to reflect the light that the sun puts out.  And like Colonel Sanders and his famous recipe chicken, or Duchamp and his toilet for art, people laugh at Midali because it is a simple mirror.  Seriously?  A mirror?  It just sounds too commonplace, too mundane.

It is clear that this small town is not technologically savvy, which gives Mayor Midali tribulations on his quest for light. The villagers fill their daily lives with nature, and are not considering the next movie at the box office, or the new cell phone that just came out on the market.  One local puts headphones into his ears and humorously declares, “Interesting.”

Christensen used lighting as an important element in the documentary.  But he didn’t have to try to hard.  Indeed the village was in shadow throughout much of the film.  Whenever light was cast he was sure to show it in a creative way such as a water puddle’s reflection on the ground, or the colorful streamers blowing in the wind.

All of the music in the documentary comes from the villagers of Viganella.  By using the sounds of the deep bass guitar, light acoustics, extravagant accordion and distinct drums, Christensen shows how artistically talented and devoted to self-expression the town is.

Both the documentary and the town of Viganella, has this naturalness to it that you can’t help but enjoy.  At the end of the movie the villagers are found basking in the sunshine.  Some are wearing shorts and hiking up the mountainside, while others are plopping big juicy grapes directly into their mouths from grapevines. We are left with a feeling of love for this town and its inhabitants.  Indeed, it truly is a fairy tale, what was once dark is now light.  As Mayor Midali’s quest for light proves successful, Viganella soaks up the sunlight and smiles back at him.

DC Hot Commodities participated in the True/False to DJ the @ction party and the Saturday night after party last week.

DC Hot Commodities was born on a tropical Miami night one new year’s eve, in response to a dance-off challenge to which we ended up shaking an audio cassette and our booties. We have been traveling, laughing, and djing ever since. Four of us came to True/False to DJ the @ction party and the Saturday night after party – we didn’t know what to expect, but we knew we would show Columbia, MO a good time. Mission accomplished! And then some! Our experience at True/False was amazing and inspiring.

Both parties were a great success from our eyes, with 1) sweat and 2) abundance of original dance moves as important measures. Being with lots of people boogying, hearing new musical styles, and respecting each other are what make DJing worthwhile for us, and True/False turned it. As you know if you were at the party, our repertoire includes music from Kenya, Baltimore, Peru, New Orleans, Pakistan, and other places near and far, pumping out jamz like electro, disco, reggaeton, house, salsa, bhangra, dance hall, soul, hip-hop, high life, cumbia, and much more. We love dancing to the music that we DJ, and we were so happy that True/False-goers felt the same way! For us, sincere djing is a collaborative exercise along with the audience, and together we all made some great parties happen.

We finally got to catch a couple of movies on Sunday – The Oath (mistakenly called the Omen by some amongst us, which grew into an affectionate inside joke), Tightrope, Colony, La Familia, and Holy Wars. All five films were fantastic, and we hope to make it back to T/F again soon and be able to enjoy even more! (Not to mention all the great food we stuffed ourselves with at local restaurants). DC Hot Commodities love to combine djing and music with multi-media wildness, so being in a space with lots of filmmakers, musicians, and other creative folks was fabulous and inspiring. Sometimes when you’re behind the dj booth it’s hard to meet people, so we made some stickers to pass out with our contact info – hopefully you got one! They were the result of impromptu, lovin-Missouri photo shoot hijinx in the Travellodge parking lot that left us all in a fit of laughter.

Back in Washington, DC, we all dj with another crew called Anthology of Booty, and throw a monthly party called BackDoor. Our crew is a mix of people from many different backgrounds, and we are painfully aware of how social spaces like dances, clubs, bars and even theaters have been used to keep people apart and maintain social dynamics such as racism, misogyny, and homophobia. We are committed to resisting these negative forces by creating spaces for dancing, enjoyment, relaxation, and art with an emphasis on inclusion and respect. It was an exciting and positive experience joining forces with True/False on this mission!

Video by Simin Wang/Missourian

True/False Film Fest 2010 concluded with crowds singing and dancing to tunes played by bands such as The Toughcats and Rum Drum Ramblers at the Missouri Theatre Sunday night.

David Wilson, co-founder and co-director of the festival was satisfied with T/F this year. He said, “I feel fantastic. There were lots of problem, like the weather, but the overall was good.”

Tim Wahl, a pioneer scientist from St.Louis, drove back to attend T/F. “Catching T/F is a break from my job,” he said. “I like the people. They don’t push a lot, and everyone’s friendly. I love to come back.”

Wahl went to school at MU’s College of Arts and Science. He hopes that T/F 2011 will not change too much, or get too popular such that he would not be able to get tickets to the movie.

Wilson said that he does not foresee such a thing happening next year. He said, “There will always be tickets.”

T/F volunteer Mike Denehy rides his ostrich Edgar at T/F the entire night. He likes the wide variety of music at T/F each year. Photo by Simin Wang/Missourian

Mike Denehy, a volunteer who rode an ostrich called Edgar, wanted T/F to stay this way. “I love the wide variety of music at T/F,” he said. “I want most of the same thing, and another good year for the next T/F.”

Taken by Zac Early before the screening of The Red Chapel

Bright and early Sunday morning, we made our way to Stephens College’s Firestone-Baars Chapel for a screening of the Danish film “The Red Chapel,” fittingly enough. As melodies of Noah Earle serenaded the congregation of True/False faithful, I was fixated on the uniformity of the squared pews radiating from the stage. The high backs of the seats made us sit at attention as we zeroed in on the target-like True/False logo behind Mr. Earle.

A door leading down the center of the chapel was left open so that the projector could be far enough away from the screen. The film was to be projected through that door, but I could not help but feel as if someone (possibly the projectionist) was peaking in, watching us watch the film. And that’s what we did. Like good disciples of the True/False vision, we sat politely and watched as the absurdity transpired on screen.

“The Red Chapel” follows filmmaker Mads Brügger and his makeshift comedy troupe of two Korean-born Danish comedians travel to North Korea on sort of a cultural exchange of rather dubious intentions. They soon find that their postmodern comedy act is not appreciated the way they had hoped as North Korean officials carefully restructure the troupe’s act to suit local audiences.

To compound things, one of Brügger’s comedians, Jacob, a self-described spastic, challenges the superficial perfection of the North Koreans by merely being present. It is clear from the beginning that the North Koreans are both horrified and intrigued by Jacob’s wheelchair. North Korea’s eugenics-laden history is brought to the forefront as Jacob is paraded through Pyongyang while not allowed to fully participate in his own act.

What is most striking about this nonfiction, postmodern comedy are the North Korean people themselves. The group visits a school where all the children are attractive and extremely talented. They stand at perfect attention, like the soldiers of the North Korean army. When they applaud, each audience member looks to see that they are in-step with their peers. It is eerie, much more like a cult than any dictatorship.

Hidden in Pyongyang are any signs of life. There are not shop signs or storefronts visible from the streets. Eight lane streets through the city are virtually empty. One does not see a soul in public until the day the North Koreans put on a “peace demonstration” in remembrance of the day when the Americans and South Koreans attacked the North. It’s what one doesn’t see in North Korea that teaches the most about this bizarre country.

Throughout the film, the theme of manipulation was present. Just as the North Korean officials sought to manipulate the Danish comedy team’s act, their government manipulated the people into believing that their leader, the eccentric Kim Jong-il, was their savior, savant and protector all in one. Once again, hidden were the atrocities of eugenics, starvation and mind-control. Even Brügger plays a role in the manipulation. Brügger skillfully traverses a slippery slope as he convinces the North Koreans that he is dedicated to their cause and his comedians just to play along despite their own internal conflicts with this suffocating regime.

“The Red Chapel” represents the best True/False has to offer. It was irreverent, insightful and hugely entertaining. Films like these are why folks return every year to the festival in droves, wearing the uniform of red and black, marching down Broadway. Like good North Koreans following the propaganda of the Supreme Leader, we believe in the festival and how it can enlighten our worldview. This film is clearly among the best. I highly recommend searching it out at Ninth Street Video as soon as it becomes available.

There’s something about happy-go-lucky pop music and video clips from the late 1950s and early 1960s that makes you feel… disturbed. Disquieted. At least, that’s how it feels when Adam Curtis combines these elements in his newest film, “It Felt Like A Kiss.”

So what do you do when the American dream turns into a nightmare? This is what Curtis explores in a film that investigates the unraveling edges of American dominance in the time period just before hippies came onto the scene. On the outside, everyone seems happy, and the music is light and happy, too, so why is there an accumulating sense of dread?We find out when Curtis reveals CIA coups that failed to kill Fidel Castro and that put a corrupt dictator in power in Africa. We are also shown that Saddam Hussein used to work for the United States, that Brian Wilson wrote his happy pop music to distract from the screaming in his head and Lou Reed underwent electroshock therapy to “cure” him of homosexual feelings. This period in American history is drilled into our heads as a “more innocent time,” and yet we discover that this is only a facade for a darker period in our history.

This film is hauntingly beautiful and will stay with the viewer long after he or she has left the theater. American history will never feel the same after “It Felt Like A Kiss.”

The audience of "Last Train Home" feasts on food provided by Addison's.

The audience who attended the closing night film “Last Train Home” Sunday evening enjoyed a feast at the Missouri Theatre by Addison’s.

Frank Gonzales, a real estate investor, was a first-timer at True/False Film Fest. He took his 9-year-old son, Damian Gonzales, here to learn more about film. Damian has been making, producing and editing his own films since he was seven, and he has won several awards, such as SATO 48.

Damien and Frank Gonzales attended True/False for the first time. Damian, who loves making videos, spent the past few days interviewing people on the streets and editing his films.

Gonzales said, “We just want to come here and see how professionals film, and he (Damian) can learn.” Damian spent the past few days interviewing people on the streets and editing his films.

Alisa Hayes attends True/False Film Fest for the fourth year. On why she likes the festival, she said, "I can learn about stuff I had not known, be with friends, and eat and drink."

Alisa Hayes, a doctor at University Hospital, came for the fourth time. She attended the reception with her husband, Chris Hayes.

She said she likes the festival because “I can learn about stuff I had not known, be with friends, and eat and drink.”

She said even if she moved away from Columbia, she would still come back for the festival.

For more photos, click here.

We are first introduced to Khalid Kelly, an Irish-born convert to Islam. Kelly read the Koran during a stint in prison, and the faith becomes his lifestyle.

His mission is to live a fundamental and conservative Muslim lifestyle and to seek an Islamic state.

His counter-character in the film is Aaron Taylor, an evangelical Christian missionary. Born in what he refers to as the Bible Belt, Taylor’s goal is to evangelize Muslims around the world, to be a “soldier for Christ.”

Clearly, the men who are the subjects of the film are direct opposites. The film explores these differences, and at times makes the issues at hand seem so black and white that the viewer begins to feel a sense of despair.

The men represent a wider culture, and are absolutely steadfast in their convictions. Millions of people in the world have similar beliefs, and the film makes the viewer feel that a catastrophic conflict is just around the corner.

After all, how can there be compromise where disagreement is absolute?

An example of their vital differences is in their reactions to the events of Sept. 11, 2001. Taylor, who was 23 on Sept. 11, 2001, was deeply affected by the tragedy.

Shortly after, he wrote a brief call to action to his church. He outlined the situation as a sign of the end times described in the Bible.

He sees the world today as in great danger, humanity in a war between good and evil. He urged his fellow Christians to start waging the battle for souls.

He and his wife develop a ministry with the goal of evangelizing the non-Christian parts of the world. The ministry takes him all around the globe, including to places hostile to his message.

Kelly, on the other hand, has saved newspaper clippings of the catastrophic 9/11 event. He believes the Taliban and Muslim fundamentalists want what he wants. He and his wife even named their son Osama.

He believes that part of his duty, since a Muslim is to work to implement what is called sharia law—and an absolute Islamic state.

The turning point of the film comes when Taylor and Kelly first meet. They have a debate, in which Kelly gets the best of Taylor. Taylor realizes that the U.S. and Christians in general are not always necessarily innocent.

From that moment, each man again takes different paths.

During the debate, Kelly shows a brief glimmer of tolerance, suggesting that each camp simply live and let live. Yet, he becomes more vocal in his campaign for sharia law. He flees his home in the U.K. fearing arrest. He travels to Pakistan and realizes that even in what he considers a Muslim state, many people don’t support sharia law.

Kelly finds himself driven to find the only people who he finds he can truly identify himself with – the Taliban.

Taylor, on the other hand finds himself motivated to use new tactics to find success with his ministries. His beliefs were not changed by the debate, but it challenged him to view them in a new way. Taylor approaches his goals with renewed faith and a more accurate view of how to effectively preach. He recently published a book and keeps a blog, the genesis of which was his meeting with Kelly.

The film’s narration acts as a driving force and helps to develop each of its key characters. The photography sets each scene and depicts the scenario at hand so the viewer accurately understands the sense of danger associated with particular scenes. This helps the viewer understand each man’s zeal and the strength of their convictions.

The film weaves a vivid tapestry that ties the complexities of politics and religion tightly together. Religion has always been a driving force behind action in the world, but with Islam as the fastest growing religion in the world, the global landscape has the potential to be very different in the coming years.

HolyWars is a move that preaches tolerance, and displays polarizing issues. It helps us understand a new perspective on the state of the world. The issues can be a bit difficult to grasp simply by their nature, but the value of the new knowledge the film offers surpasses any frustration the complexity of the issues might cause.

Viewers can expect to leave the screening with a renewed sense of hope and a heightened awareness of one the most pressing issues of our time.

In Lucy Walker’s Waste Land, Walker and Brazilian contemporary artist Vik Muniz simultaneously expose the lives of the pickers through their own very different, but equally effective, art forms.

The film begins in Brooklyn, New York, with Muniz planning for a trip to Jardim Gramacho, but it’s not until he spends his first day in the landfill that one realizes the importance of his project.

Muniz and his assistant, as well as the audience, become enamored with each picker’s story.

One is Isis, a woman whose son died when he was 3 and whose ex-husband and daughter will no longer see or speak to her.

There’s also Tião, who formed an association of pickers called ACAMJG, and dedicated himself to starting a library for them.

Walker chronicles Muniz’s labor-intensive project, which employs the pickers. With Muniz’s guidance, the pickers fill in the shadows and lines of their giant-sized portraits with recycled material such as bottle caps and plastic bottles on the floor of Muniz’s workspace.

Once each portrait is completed, Muinz captures their photos for reproduction.

It became apparent how important the project was especially after Sunday’s screening at the Blue Note, when Walker told the audience Muniz probably wouldn’t have done the project without the film.

From the introduction of the pickers to their emotional journey to complete Muniz’s exhibit, Walker captures the story of how a once underprivileged, successful artist can impact the lives of the people could have become.

Utopia, though,  wasn’t a film so much as a live presentation. A live documentary, as they called it.

Filmmaker Sam Green was in the theater while we watched, narrating as the series of images and movie clips played on the screen behind him.

For some segments, he would fall silent to just let us watch. While he was talking about what was on the screen, it sounded so much like a documentary narration that it was sometimes easy to forget that he was standing at the front of the room.

Then he would stumble over his words or throw out a curse word, and we’d be reminded that this wasn’t a disembodied voice, but a real guy.

The best parts were when audience collectively laughed at something he showed, and he would pause and react with something like, “Yes! This really happened.”

Utopia is a perfect society, where everyone lives in harmony and happiness. There is no money and no conflict. The word utopia means no place.

By its very definition, it can’t really exist. It’s an unobtainable ideology that people have been striving to find for ages. This presentation explored some of the past century’s attempts and failures, when the dreamers of the early 20th century found their efforts toward perfect harmony collided with some of the most horrific human tragedies in history – the Holocaust, Hiroshima.

Utopia really had the potential to be a supremely dismal film. But somehow, Green managed to make us come away from it feeling hopeful.

Maybe all the failed utopias don’t matter as much as the little utopias we create every time that a group of people join together for a common cause.

In The Dwelling, director Sheldon Candis takes the audience to to Sumida Gawa in Tokyo, where homeless men build homes from scraps, drink coffee, smoke cigarettes, and survive a meager daily existence for the pleasure of doing it another day. My Name Is Sydney, directed by Melanie Levy, brings the story back to the west, where 16-year-old Sydney lives a complicated life of expression. Sydney struggles with autism, and her mother and father struggle to communicate with their non-verbal child. Sydney uses a board to point at letters and make words. Despite her difficulties speaking her mind, Sydney is a writer.

The next film, Goldthwait Home Movies, directed by Bobcat Goldthwait, is a hilarious showing of family videos with contemporary commentary by the now adult Goldthwait children. The old-school footage with the absurd interpretations in the voiceover create a comfortable family-and-friends atmosphere with a lingering touch of nostalgia.

Arsy Versy, directed by Miro Remo, comes from eastern Europe. Although the film centers on Lubo’s passion for photographing bats, the core of the film is the relationship he has with his mother, who watches over him as she wonders if he will ever get a job that will pay the bills or a lover who will keep him company when she isn’t around anymore.

The films in Someone To Watch Over interestingly concern repetition. Considering the title, and the subject matter of the films, the idea of caring for another or caring for oneself is a day-at-a-time sort of activity. The success of ‘taking care’ is measured by the opportunity to do it again, to live another day. In My Name Is Sydney, any sort of true communication with Sydney requires patience from both parties and collaboration from Sydney. The spelling board is used over and over again, as a way of extracting meaning out of Sydney’s world.

The repetition in The Dwelling is dependent on earthly rotation. The film starts during the day and closes at night. In a way, the monotony of The Dwelling resembles the daily routine familiar to most. The unique circumstances of living on the street make the routine seem painful. The wooden box that doubles as a room does not seem water or air tight, and the cardboard pillows don’t seem comfortable. This life, intimidating to those of us with a roof over our heads, is enough for these men, who make the best of their dwelling with cognitive effort and a formula; don’t drink alcohol, drink coffee instead.

Although Loop Loop was not a narrative like the other films in the compilation, the lingering effect of the five minute montage re-enforced the idea of life as patient repetition. The scenes from the film are made into long strips that are stacked one on top of the other. These strips of film begin to shift at different speeds, and soon the strips begin to take on a three-dimensional feel. Then goes into the scenes from the strips in full-screen, as if the audience was in a train that crosses the heart of some nondescript tropical eastern city. The film then loops back to the original format ready to go again. Chaotic repetition and submission to the dwelling.

Someone To Watch Over was as provocative as it was visually appealing. The title of the compilation is already a question to a series of films that provide few if any answers. What does it mean to watch over oneself, someone else? What does it mean to survive, to exist? The answer, again, is unapologetically obtuse. The suggestion is to keep at it, to beat uncertainty with discipline and a patient routine.